The Red Hurricane Of Konoha
by Heliosion
Summary: In a world where Naruto is an adult. Where he was born before the third shinobi war. He is beguiled by his past, haunted by his mentor's death and stuck in a loop since that time. Come and see as adult Naruto watches a new generation soar into the sky
1. Birth Of Another Generation

Naruto: My Way

The Red Hurricane Of Konoha

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 1: Birth Of Another Generation

Disclaimer: In tribute to the mighty Uchiha clan I am issuing a new disclaimer which is this. If I owned Naruto I would have made it so Madara didn't take the piss with the super powers. Hey I'm bored I know I'll give myself the rinnegan!-Point taken no?

XreviewX

It was that time of year it seemed. The land of fire was going to have a ninja village filled with another generation of genin shinobi. He could imagine the confident genin ninja males to pretty kunoichi that would soon dive into the heart of their chosen trade. He saw the village burn brighter and its will of fire relit once more.

He watched the sun rise up into the sky which allowed the newly rebuilt village of Konoha to sparkle. Its buildings young like a sapling replaced the destruction from the Kyubbi no Kitsune's rampage nearly thirteen years ago. The wonderful pillars that made the Hokage tower were built with help from his own hands. The academy, the hospital and the orphanage all benefitted from the money he gave to them off his own back when his oldest friend and mentor passed away sealing the beast into the belly of their Jinchuuriki. The bustling shops, the ANBU headquarters hell even the sewers all took aid from the students dead, alive or nukenin that he taught the teachings of the fallen village of Uzushiogakure no Sato that he could barely remember escaping when those people came and burned it to the ground.

Sometimes he would trade the pine smell coming from the Senju created forests, the warm climate and the security this village gave him every time he looked upon it from the Hokage monument he was sitting on for the smell of the ocean, the chill from the sea and the taste of fish in the air that signified his old home. He sat on top of his mentor's head no less. The man would probably have a blast knowing his friend was using his forehead to enjoy the sights of the village. The ninja had always joked to the legend that was Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage of Konoha, the Kiiroi Senko that he one day planned to go over his head and replace him as Hokage. To one day assume the title of Godaime when his aunt finally bore an heir to the clans of the Uzumaki and Namikaze clans and Minato stood down as the unique blonde swore he would always do.

But like his aunt's dreams like his goal of becoming the Hokage died the moment he saw the dead eyes of his friend, mentor and his father figure who had guided him through moving into another village, the sole survivor of a destroyed village and through being the only kid in school not born in Konoha. The man had advised and steered him on course while the man coped with the complexities of war, when the shinobi was given the title of jounin and issued his mastery in fuin jutsu and finally when they together designed the Shiki fuin that sent the monster attacking the village to its final defeat.

Only it was meant to be him as he gazed into the shimmering sun bathing his precious village with light to fight off the shadows of the day that was supposed to sacrifice his own life that fateful night to save the village.

Uzumaki Naruto, jounin shinobi aged twenty five, fuin master, powerful genjutsu wielder and holder of the rarest elemental alignment wind that was meant to be lying and rotting in his grave. His mentor was meant to be the one raising children and guiding the Godaime Hokage in their new role.

"Minato you bastard," Naruto sighed guiltily, "You were the guardian of my aunt's smile."

The town was sleepy apart from the active shinobi watching the four guardian gates, moving around the rooftops of this shining example of perseverance or returning from missions. His eyes traced ANBU patrol patterns searching for weaknesses in their grid method of searching but finding nothing was out of sorts and the people he called children weren't slacking off.

"Kakashi has trained his brats well hasn't he?"

Naruto pulled the long red hair out of his eyes to look up to see a man was standing almost looming over him like a cheerful deity. A white haired older gentleman who would loudly declare he was the biggest pervert in Konoha and allow the Godaime to smash him into another country. He still wore his horned forehead protector minus the regulation Konoha symbol replacing it for the kanji for oil that kept his wild mane of white hair out of his eyes. His red kabuki style clothing was an eyesore, nothing a ninja with any sense would wear. But he wore it just like the Yondaime; his former student had done so long ago and just like why Naruto favoured standing out.

Jiraiya, legendary sannin had earned the right from reputation, skill gained and the power at his disposal. Others did it too like Maito Gai, the young and newly promoted Tokubetsu jounin Yuuhi Kurenai and the less said about Mitarashi Anko, the snake mistress the better.

Naruto stood up using chakra to anchor his feet and adjusted the parts of the tight shinobi uniform he wore. His red shining hair long as the wild grasses of Kusa running down to his waist like a bird's nest gone awry clashed with his black skin tight muscle shirt which it was covered partly by a gunmetal grey jounin vest unzipped. It went with matching pants and feet clad in shinobi sandals with a metal strap for extra durability.

"ANBU has never been better I suppose," Naruto agreed, pulling up a facemask to cover his mouth and nose. "It's a shame he's retiring to train Konohamaru's team. The little brat doesn't know who he's depriving to get such an honour."

"I always wondered why you didn't train him yourself," Jiraiya pondered, sitting down next to the ninja in his geta wooden shoes and opening a bottle of sake that came from seemingly nowhere. "He practically thinks you are kami-sama with the way he tells your old war stories you told him as a brat."

Naruto shrugged and wistfully stared at the navy blue sky. "I did the whole training thing twice and I didn't do too well with it."

"You trained an ANBU commander," Jiraiya said, pouring him a saucer that again seemingly came from nowhere and handed him the small cup that the younger ninja took. He pulled down his facemask to drink.

"Who tried to massacre his clan," the red head interjected, gulping it down and handing the saucer back to the man who helped put the pieces back together in the aftermath of the Kyubbi attack. "And he would have if I hadn't interfered. I was barely able to seal his sharingan before he fled in that short lived duel. I was so happy I never got round to teaching him fuin jutsu."

"Alright then," Jiraiya japed, wiggling his eyebrows, a sign he was being perverted or about to, "What about that cute little chuunin you taught that has that adorable crush on you?"

"She watched as her teammates were tortured into a mess I could have prevented if I hadn't been drawn into that battle with those Oto ninja. It was no surprise that she latched onto me like a lifeline."

"You should just let her," Jiraiya said, trying to sound sagely but failed with the glowering eyes of jealousy that a younger woman was interested in the older shinobi. He took a long slurp of his alcohol as if to appease his angry desires to have the same situation.

"The girl is nineteen and much too young to know the depths of her heart much less know anything about love just yet." He took his forehead protector out of his pocket and wrapped it around his neck, displacing some hair hiding a scar from a wound that should've killed him.

Jiraiya scoffed at his reasoning and poured Naruto another saucer. The man refilled his own saucer and drank another saucer filled of clear alcohol.

"Drink so I can pretend you're just drunk instead of stubborn."

The younger man rolled his blue eyes, downed the sweet tasting liquor in one gulp and handed the saucer back to the older man.

"How about we start talking about why you are really here?" Naruto asked, standing up and stretching his arms. His shin and armguards glittering with a polished platinum coloured metal finish crunched as they were moved around. "And who told you I would be here."

"I have news on that person," the sannin said suddenly serious. "News well whispers that he is part of a group that is after the Bijuu."

Naruto lost his relaxed mood. He pulled up his facemask to hide everything up to his nose once more and collected a ninjato he had left beside him. He pulled it from both sides and the middle slid out to reveal gleaming steel before sheathing it and tucking it into a brown belt holding his weapon pouch around his waist to keep it secure.

"So he's truly beyond redemption," Naruto said coldly. "I had high hopes for him when I took him on. I had hoped all of this crap he pulled was madness caused by the Mangekyo," Naruto added, shielding his eyes from the burning sun. If anyone could see him the jounin from way up the Hokage monument Naruto bet he would be making quite a formidable pose. He could make out in the early morning shadows shops being opened and civilians moving around to start their day. It wouldn't be long now until he had to endure his annoying nephew's bragging about becoming a genin like Naruto hadn't been one of the fastest promoted shinobi to jounin in history. "Any details you have on hand?"

The man poured himself one more saucer and sloshed it around like he was trying to divine the future before speaking. "Keep an eye out for black cloaks with red clouds. I identified Itachi wandering around with a nukenin from Kirigakure named Hoshigaki Kisame."

"The monster of the mist," Naruto identified, "I met him once when my genin team was hunting a rogue ninja from Taki on their village's behalf. He and my jounin sensei nearly killed each other when they fought."

"How is old Taira-sensei doing?"

"He died last year from complications from injuries. You were away on a mission when I buried him and I haven't seen you since. When did you get back?"

"I just got back last night. I'm sorry to hear about him. He was one of the good guys, a dying breed from the second shinobi war."

Naruto mused on the old man who was his teacher. The guy had trained him only until he was a chuunin where Minato and Kushina took him under their wings to solidify their family bonds. Naruto learned the fuin jutsu of his homeland and under Minato one of his prized jutsu among other techniques. They weren't close, didn't even keep in touch much outside of drinking in the occasional bar but all the same a fresh chunk of his heart had been cut away from the scarred organ.

Then the revelation came to him. Jiraiya had managed to skip the subject of who told the sannin where he would be hanging out away from his responsibilities. "It was Shizune-chan that told you where I was right?" Naruto drawled, "Or Genma since he is working for our busty Hokage too. You have already reported in and you were sent to find me to report in yes?"

"As usual your deduction skills are first rate but I felt we were behind on our drinking."

Naruto chuckled darkly and saluted the old man. "Inform Kakashi about this group and I will keep an eye on the kid too but I better go and report to the Godaime. Thanks for the drink." Naruto saluted him again and used the shunshin creating a flash of blinding light.

The rapid acceleration of the shunshin led him leisurely enough to the front of the Hokage tower. It was rebuilt from the wreckage of the old place. Made from the same stone apart from the new pillars providing new strength to its stability it was a proud column that represented the might of the office it represented. It was painted red with the symbol of the fire nation in gold on the front door. A small set of steps had been added with fuin jutsu developed by the previous holder of the title of Kage that could turn them and every square inch of its walls into a deadly weapon in the blink of an eye. They had even placed a block recovered from another building with the insignia of one of the mystery hiraishin markers in memory of the great man.

"One day I'll figure out how you made that jutsu work my old friend and then surpass you," Naruto said out loud as he always did a small ritual that the ninja performed from time to time in case the deceased Hokage was watching over him. So the man knew that he would never be forgotten by the grateful ninja lamenting his loss every moment of his life since Minato had perished.

It was still quiet around this area at this time of day. The night shift of shinobi that guarded this zone filled with the administration of the shinobi system that was this village's life blood didn't finish for another hour. ANBU headquarters was nearby in a small nondescript building that had its heart sixty metres below it in a massive artificial cavern. The elite black operations unit Ne led by a great man Shimura Danzo had their home nearby as well but neglected to show a public front just next to it and all the other important daily functions. Like for example the finance offices right through to the quartermaster station was all in the vicinity of the tower.

Naruto took in a deep breath and strolled into the front office manned by a pink haired woman with bright green eyes and wearing the standard chuunin uniform. She was a pretty thing, small but bright and cheerful.

"Hello Sasaki-chan," Naruto greeted with an eye smile. The woman used to his flirting grinned at him and rolled her roller swivelled chair over to a large table near the back where paperwork and her staff she was using as a paperweight while the air conditioning was on.

"Here you go Naruto-kun," she said with a wink handing him his badge giving him permission to be in this building. This girl had served with him until she had needed to get her ankle cut off at the ankle during the last shinobi war. The Hokage's research into convincing prosthetic limbs meant it was nearly impossible to tell that she only had one foot. "Looking forward to seeing little Konohamaru as a genin?"

"When he stops bragging about it," Naruto replied, "Isn't Sakura-chan in his class?"

"Don't remind me," Sasaki groaned feigning a headache. "My little sister has been crooning over the Uchiha kid they have in their graduating class. I was just glad I made sure she knew that a real ninja wants a kunoichi that can fight on her own two feet. Kaa-san passed on our clan illusions and Bōjutsu techniques to her."

Naruto knew who she was talking about. It was Little Uchiha Sasuke's year to become a man too. He had suffered his brother defection, and watching his father Fungaku be murdered by his brother before fleeing with his bloodline locked out. Poor Mikoto-chan was a shell of her former vibrant self. The marriage had never been happy with the age difference, the early pregnancy at fifteen with Itachi but Fungaku had been kind to her if they weren't in love. It had destroyed her and between his duties to family and home Naruto had helped the Uchiha kid with his anger. In a clan that prided itself on emotional control and looking so alike to Itachi that Sasuke wouldn't seek them out for aid it fell in his eyes to guide him a little. His mother had to be watched but luckily the woman opened up to him sometimes.

"So the old lady taught two awesome girls then," Naruto chirped, "Wow she's got some good genes that lady," he added watching the bright girl blush. It was fun to tease her sometimes when the mood suited it. "See you later Sasaki-chan."

"I'll be at the Garden later on with some friends!" she blurted out all embarrassed.

"I will be there Sasaki-chan if I'm not being sent on a mission," Naruto said, waving with his back to her as he approached the spiral stairs that led to the top. "This would be easier if she just let us jump through her window like in the old days," Naruto grumbled hearing the chuunin girl laugh gaily until he disappeared from her sight.

Naruto walked up the quiet stairs with his hands in his pockets listening to the hustle and bustle of the Hokage building at work. With each kunai proof window he passed his adopted home was nearly awake the further out of the shinobi zone he was capable of seeing. He passed nobody on the way to the top with nothing in it but a small waiting room with a few chairs and the suspiciously normal looking front door sealed to the teeth with fuin jutsu to resist damn near anything that Naruto had designed and patented. Sitting in a small alcove typing into a small and battered computer was the secretary; a frumpy civilian with a stern expression took one gaze at his badge and pressed the buzzer under her desk to let him in.

It was a crowded office this morning and this early too. In fact the small office was jam packed with shinobi all of which represented the villages finest and brightest. The Hokage sat behind her desk. Senju Tsunade was the third of her clan to claim control of this village preceded by the legendary Shodaime and Nidaime Hokage shinobi. She was in her elder years but her powerful genjutsu hid the strains of age and with Naruto's aid that diamond on her forehead was the most powerful healing technique in the entire world. She was a typical blonde which was so exotic just like her predecessor with her blonde locks and unusual womanly bust that didn't fit this region. She sat behind her gigantic desk in that big old green coat with the kanji for "gamble" on the back examining papers so intently she hadn't noticed his arrival with all the chatter from the other shinobi until a familiar former teammate politely coughed.

Katou Shizune was his age and a skilled healer who made up part of team Taira so long ago it felt now making the young man shudder from feeling his age. She was more typical of what a woman generally was in the fire nation with black hair bobbed to frame her face. She was slender and hid all her womanly parts under her black kimono that also helped to conceal the senbon launcher hidden under her sleeve. The woman now ran the hospital on her Hokage's behalf as the director as well as gaining the dreaded title of "minion". Her minions were worked hard. A bit too much that had Naruto rejecting a job with her directly. Izumo and Kotetsu hadn't been quite the same bright and bushy tailed ANBU since they started work with the slave driver of a Hokage.

"I take it that old fart didn't tell you why he was sent after you until after you two had a drink," Tsunade said in her unusual form of a greeting, "I suppose better late than never."

"Good morning to you too Hokage-sama," Naruto said walking into the scrum of people. "How may I serve you today?"

"Cut the crap kid before I decided you are coming onto me and I kick your ass."

"I would never dream of doing that," he japed and eye smiled at the Hokage's shaken head of amusement.

"I want your opinion on the team choices this year."

Naruto stepped up to her desk, the trained killers in his way parted for him to move unimpeded where he picked up the smell of sake and chose not to comment on it and instead to read the document on the desk. They were shinobi profiles, new ones all blank except for school scores. Several others had been marked with a red stamp "Sorted" listing team's one through six and their chosen jounin.

The unselected ones all of them were clan related for once. No annoying civilians to place with an educated guess at best. The veteran already knew some of them from their siblings like Uchiha Sasuke rookie of the year, Sakura-chan the first girl to Konohamaru, the brat who barely scraped middle ground (earning some teasing later on) to more casual acquaintances and enquires like Nara Shikaku's boy was graduating near the bottom and of course the feral combination of Inuzuka Kiba and Akamaru.

All the combinations possible with just nine of them were just interesting. It was easy why they had asked for a second opinion before deciding. They were tracking teams, hunter squads and other such wonderful potential. It was harder than normal to put them into niches with all the talent flying around in this year's batch. The choosing of the sensei to teach them all were also not so easy to pin down. No wonder the Hokage who didn't have the time like Sandaime and Yondaime possessed during their reigns to get to know the kids at the academy and attend the graduation ceremonies was impossible had to call him in to help.

Naruto had many theories from shadow clone abuse to some secret jutsu that magically completed all the paper work but neither of them had deemed him worthy to know the power to slay paperwork. And neither of them were alive long enough to inform the Godaime as she drudged through the paper hell.

"I think I have it figured out," Naruto stated, putting the paper down.

"Okay then please proceed then," Tsunade deferred. The shinobi grinned at the trust his trusted Hokage who deserved to inherit his friend's will of fire showed him. His reputation for students was iffy with the S ranked traitor he taught and the team that nearly died apart from one who was a model chuunin.

"I want you, you, you, and you gone. Well for for this year anyway bad luck and better luck next time." Tsunade nodded to the group of jounin shot down with a pointed finger with dejected expressions on their faces that were made to leave the room. "And you and," Naruto checked two papers statistics closely before pointing at a young woman with green hair. "And you too sweetheart." The girl's smiling face dropped a little before bowing and leaving the room.

It left three jounin in the room. All of them mixed in their various skills and profession. They were the ones he dubbed suitable for the teams he had in mind.

The first choice for him had been without a shadow of doubt the stern but fair Hatake Kakashi, the legendary shinobi who was the youngest ANBU captain then later on commander in history until Uchiha Itachi stole his crown for youngest captain aged thirteen. He was a guy who generally obeyed the shinobi laws to the point but had wiggle room thanks to his buddy, Uchiha Obito the man who currently ruled the Uchiha clan. He was dressed in the standard jounin uniform apart from the face mask that Naruto had copied as tribute to his rival and later friend. Both had learned from the Yondaime but for to Naruto's eternal annoyance the man's gravity defying neat grey hair was a secret he would never share to his wild haired counterpart.

This man had made the list for so many reasons it would take all day to recount them. He was new to training anyone not already up to a high standard but he would run Konohamaru ragged and understood the need to regularly report to the Hokage discreetly about the condition of the seal.

His counterpart was a young woman, one of his oldest friends and recently promoted named Yuuhi Kurenai, a woman two years shy of his current age with the most gorgeous red eyes in the world. Her silk like black hair was a source of jealousy among the kunoichi population and she was smoking to the point you looked for smoke to see if she was on fire. She defied the convention of new Tokubetsu jounin by wearing her strange dress that seemed to be strips of cloth that she kept hidden with her old chuunin vest. On her back was a very sharp ninjato, a present from him to keep her safe.

She had coveted the teacher position for years but couldn't face teaching brats that could drop out on her. It was the only reason Naruto needed to know that this woman would be keeping the other two candidates on their toes.

And lastly was his third teammate from his genin days Shiranui Genma. Just like Shizune he was the same age as Naruto and deceptive in his power. The blue bandana wearing senbon chewing Tokubetsu jounin was frankly the best taijutsu master Naruto had ever met outside of older legends such as Maito Gai. He wore the same uniform as Kakashi with his brown hair in two streaks held by his bandana coming down to reach his neck. He was epitome of cool and women loved him.

Although surprised Genma applied for a sensei position it went with the team choices in mind. Especially with one team in mind that went against his usual thinking processes even though the concept worked Genma was the only one that would be capable of keeping the kunoichi in mind for it in line with his charms. The loudmouth who's long suffering father would lament at the bar about how hyperactive and boy crazy she was would suit a pretty face ordering her around.

"Alright then," Naruto started, leaning against the desk. "Team seven will consist of Uchiha Sasuke, Sarutobi Konohamaru and Haruno Sakura. They will be taught by Hatake Kakashi. The two guys are rivals but good ones so they will benefit from the competition and Haruno Sakura takes after her sister and is extremely intelligent. With their brawn and her brains and skill they'll set the ninja world on fire. Good luck Kakashi."

The stern ninja stepped forward to take the files and smiled at his long time rival. "I'm glad it's you making the call Naruto."

"Whatever," Naruto said indifferently, "I know all of them personally and luckily the scores nearly match with the standard regulations for these sorts of things. Have fun."

"I'll be off to get ready for them," Kakashi declared, vanishing in a puff of smoke.

"Okay then next team eight will be led by Yuuhi Kurenai." He smiled at the excited way she was holding herself. Her dream was about to come true. "You will be taking Hyuuga Hinata, Aburame Shino and Inuzuka Kiba. They will form a tracking squad with the additional addendum of being a support and rescue squad. I chose them to be together apart from their obvious potential for tracking targets with their various unusual bloodlines and abilities simply because of Kiba. I know him. He's boisterous, a team player once I beat that into him watching his sister as a kid train with our team." He stopped to remember those goofballs that were the girl's partners. It was truly a shame both of them had been relegated to the mental asylum for life. "And I may not know the Aburame boy or the Hyuuga woman but in my opinion the two clans have got sticks stuck up their asses and their higher than normal death toll for new genin from those clans in the first year cannot be a coincidence. I'm hoping Kiba will smack them around into being less damn stoic. Have fun and see you at the Garden later tonight."

"Will do and thank you," she said in thanks, "I better go and get prepared too Hokage-sama." Unlike Kakashi she took the time to bow before she puffed into smoke.

"So it's just me then?" Genma joked.

"I can't believe he chose you to be a sensei!" Shizune mocked in a nice way. She was reading a clipboard filled with medical jargon that made Naruto's head spin. "And you for picking him."

"He works for the team I have in mind," Naruto explained, "But I hope he doesn't teach them that senbon trick. I don't need another generation of team senbon jokes thank you."

"Why is it always about the senbon?" Genma moaned.

"Ahem," Tsunade the ever patient and wonderful kunoichi with stone shattering fists interrupted. Shizune went bright red and hid behind her clip board.

"Oh right team ten will consist of Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino and Akimitchi Chouji under your leadership Genma. They will be the second generation of the infamous cho-ino-shi team their fathers created and mastered. I don't normally like to copy other people but it works and with your aid they'll be brilliant as an interrogation squad. Oh and I suspect you'll get the most out of the Yamanaka girl. Inoichi-san has warned me she still falls for pretty boys."

"I need a drink," the cool jounin groaned, "If that is all then Hokage-sama?"

"This meeting is adjourned. Be sure like the others to report to the academy nine sharp. And be sober."

"I'm out of here. See you Shizune-chan, Naruto. I better go find a tea shop or something. You are buying the first round!" He wagged his finger at the red head before theatrically sighing and doing something quite original for a ninja. He used the door to exit.

"Is there anything else Hokage-sama?" Naruto asked. He had put his hands into his jounin vest pocket and taken out a pair of fingerless gloves.

"No thanks just come back here around ten tomorrow morning," Tsunade thanked graciously, "But well there is one thing."

"I am at your disposal lady Hokage-sama," Naruto said bowing. The woman appreciated a good joke and Shizune was still off balance. It was easy to unsettle her when there wasn't two hundred Iwa hunter Nins charging right at them.

"Hurry up and make Shizune an honest woman." She managed to say this leaning her head on her arms with a totally serious look on her face. It was truly a poker face that didn't belong on the legendary sucker's face with her terrible luck with gambling.

Shizune nearly fainted. Her legs gave way but she was able to right herself in time. Naruto and Tsunade started laughing at the top of their lungs. Naruto took his cue and with a cheery wave vanished in a flash of light via shunshin.

Naruto arrived on the top of a flat rooftop just outside the Hokage tower. All around him all the civilians were up and moving around the village now. The markets were open; the dayshift ANBU teams in plain sight were patrolling the town searching for intruders or saboteurs. The normal traffic of chuunin delivering sensitive messages, genin teams making their weekly wages with D rank missions waiting for their C ranks were all moving about.

It was so alive, so teeming with activity it filled his heart with glee. After the Kyubbi reconstruction period life was returning to Minato's town. The Yondaime Hokage would have been proud of his citizens and his successor for this jewel in the forest that everyone together had polished to shine brighter than the mountains temples of Kumogakure no Sato or the river valley that Kirigakure no Sato boasted for natural beauty. This man made miracle where most would have given up proved their reputation in the world as the greatest shinobi village of the big five.

Naruto searched the path of the sun and estimated the time. The wind felt good from up here but alas the red headed jounin had places to be and people to see.

"That brat would never shut up if I skipped his graduation," Naruto grumbled. Being displaced from one of his favourite vantage points was not cool. But his aunt was a scary woman when provoked. "Even if I know what team he starts with."

Naruto navigated through the rooftops of Konoha, skilfully sticking to rooftops, walls and performing feats of unimaginably skilled agility with his perfectly honed chakras to take the swiftest path to his destination out near the legendary forests were chained off. His destination was in sight after he cleared the tall buildings of the town centre.

The shinobi academy had been moved from its old home near the main Iwa quarried stone walls of Konoha's defence perimeter. It now sat safe and snugly in a well defended woodland with a forest armed with explosive seals that no sane Konoha ninja would go into. It had taken Jiraiya, his aunt Kushina, her fuin unit and Naruto with three shadow clones a week to plan the devious array of traps that were so random even the designers forgot where all of them were. There was in theory a route through it but since nobody could recall where they had been painting those high wield regenerative explosives with invisible fuin ink nobody tried to cross it yet. The school itself was a four storey building with three graduating classes in the spring semester; summer and winter that helped keep the numbers of shinobi up nicely to around say ninety new recruits a year.

It had been built with defence in mind. The training grounds were large but they were also in the sky shielded with a barrier jutsu powered by fuin mounted on the chain link fence from Naruto's homeland that alerted the ANBU of a break in. The doors were reinforced steel and the windows made from the same kunai proof windows the Hokage's office used.

Naruto had to use the front gate like everyone to avoid an incident. Inside the main door was opened and bellowing inside was a group of children about to become adults. Naruto smiled at the genesis of a new group of shinobi and strolled on in where waiting was the anxious parents of those children.

"Why if it isn't Naruto," a familiar red head gasped clutching her heart. She approached him fondly that was a warning sign before adopting an upset expression and swung her fist that Naruto on instinct dodged.

"The Hokage asked me for something geez," Naruto pleaded. "I had to pick three of the teams."

Namikaze Kushina as she chose to be called still was weathered but still very beautiful. She had long tomato red hair, slim slender figure and wore a white dress underneath something that resembled black plain dungarees. His aunt wasn't very tall not really befitting the head of the newly established fuin research squad but had a temper that dwarfed the greatest of mountains and made literally Kages quell in fear.

"As long as you were actually working then," Kushina said with a false huff. He eye smiled at his beloved aunt and followed her to a large cluster of people chatting away to each other.

"Hello," Naruto greeted. He was swiftly absorbed by the mass of bodies. Kushina started chatting to her gal pals while the veteran male did guy stuff with the men folk.

"Well if it isn't the guy who made Shiranui-san a teacher," joked a man wearing purple, showing off blonde hair and he was trying badly to grow a moustache. Naruto wondered how long Inoichi's wife was going to let him get away with that.

"Words certainly get around fast," Naruto commentated. "Did you mind walk the jounin assigned or something?"

"Saw him going in and I saw my old buddy Kimiko-san getting rejected to teach again and she told me you chose the last three teams."

"That was the green haired chick right?" Naruto asked carefully, trying to remember that list of people but there had been a lot of names.

"Yeah she's thinking of dying it before the next choices in the winter."

"If it works I suppose it's a good idea," a large rotund man said. He was in black with heavy brown samurai based chest armour on top with a matching staff. He had a head of hair like his aunt only it looked like an untrimmed hedge. Naruto wondered how long Chouza Akimitchi's wife was going to let him away with that.

"She just didn't match the personality profile I had in mind for team eight. I could have picked team seven but I was under orders to make sure Kono was with Hatake."

"Because he was not you," exclaimed a voice from behind him patting him on the shoulder. She was a feral woman, a tomboy much like her kids and Rin-chan, Kakashi's old teammate. She had wild brown hair but it matched her animal like ferocity in her expressions and the brown tattoo marks like claws on her cheeks just under her eyes. Inuzuka Tsume was like the other somewhat older guys talking to him with one exception, Nara Shikaku who was sitting quite happily under a nearby tree dozing while his wife scowled at him. She was a believer in wearing the standard issued uniform and her talking mutt Kuromaru with the eye patch was standing right beside her.

"Why does everyone wonder why I don't teach anymore?" Naruto said passing it off as humour. But it was reassuring that so many of the elite of this village respected him, a foreigner seen as one of their own.

"You taught my daughter to be a fine chuunin," Tsume boasted, "She might even be trying for jounin this year. She wouldn't have bothered mastering her earth chakra or learning genjutsu without you. She loves that veterinary practice you helped her out with."

"You are adequate," the mutt supplied gruffly.

Naruto grinned weakly. She and her mutt had brought up that subject again. The red haired ninja looked for help from the pack orientated woman who wanted her daughter married off but nobody was being a taker until unfortunately (fortunately if you thought in a certain way) the subject of the conversation enthusiastically walked up to say a few words.

Inuzuka Hana was nineteen years old and was part of team Naruto from way back. The girl had been a joy to teach as she absorbed any teachings he provided both in the ninja arts and how one lived their lives constantly improving even defying her clan teachings. The girl had three canines called the three Haimaru brothers trailing after her that thankfully couldn't speak yet. She wore just her chuunin vest with a sleeveless white shirt underneath along with some pants holding her kunai holster and kept her hair in a tidy ponytail with two strands running down each side of her face. They were parallel with her own tattoo marks that covered almost all of each cheek that suited her cherub face and brown eyes.

"Shishou," Hana said with a flash of fangs. He truly appreciated his luck that one of his students had become a productive member of society but the girl harboured affection beyond the bond between student and teacher and Naruto was not sure how to take it. It was an open secret he was the proverbial eternal bachelor and it was more of a real secret that her aunt and the red headed male were on/off lovers. "How are you today sir?"

"I am fine Hana," Naruto said politely, "Your mother tells me you will be attempting to at last join me in the ranks of the jounin."

She flushed brightly and everyone old enough to have forgotten it was like to single and unchained to the one woman had that indulgent smile old people gave youngsters in the throes of love. Naruto was not amused.

"I have a while to go before I rival you shishou but I can make more money with the jounin ranked missions and improve the equipment at the vets faster." The girl had hidden her face with her hair and those damn looks from the adults officially told him he was getting no help here.

"I am positive you will make me proud," Naruto said hoping to avoid a silence but cursing at the wrong choice of words. The girl's eyes shot up almost glittering and right now he was confused in his own feelings towards the girl. He needed a miracle, anything at all would have done. Right now Iwa invading would be preferable to letting these people who thought the girl's crush was cute and encouraging it less than subtly. Even that bastard who was meant to be sleeping Shikaku, Mr Scar face himself was smirking. He was always too damn smart for his own good.

"I will do my very best shishou," Hana promised with her full heart. The girl was sweet and really nice. He was friends with her hounds, a sign he found out all too late of a woman fancying the man they welcomed into their close knit lives. But her age, what she represented to him was a barrier and for god sake she was his student.

It burned too close to his first crush on his first ever teacher back home in Uzushiogakure. They didn't have an academy only a series of apprentices that had masters until they were dubbed capable of fighting alone. They had limited resources but their ingenuity, longevity preserving their brightest minds for longer had allowed them to become a village admired and feared in their own right.

"I wonder where you are now Guren-sensei," he muttered to himself. She had vanished holding back the enemy when they had escaped from the village and didn't return.

Suddenly the bell rang and what shot out were the twelve year old graduating genin teams. Naruto thanked the god that was listening in for the bailout as Tsume and Hana could have heard what he had been mumbling under his breath.

The red head ignored the faceless nobodies he didn't give two hells about writing some of them right away as body bag material unless they somehow passed their real genin exams. Naruto watched them go to their civilian parents and surprisingly one of them was from a noted clan he had dismissed right away. The ones he had come to see about seemed to be manning the rear.

His eyes caught sight of the Hyuuga and she seemed far less stick up the ass than anticipated and almost seemed rather shy. Her file had listed her as the heir of their clan. Hell does freeze over sometimes it seemed. Her Aburame teammate was the stereotypical glasses and heavy coat to hide his versatile bugs he kept under that thick jacket. But the one he had true interest in caught his eyes and punched the air. His proud mother dashed forward to congratulate him while the sister hung back.

"Well done my boy!" roared his mother. Kiba in his grey coat Naruto had bought him for his last birthday wore his forehead proudly on his forehead. "I knew you could do it!"

"I am simply that awesome!" Kiba boasted.

"It's time to go home and show this off to your auntie Rin. She'll see all that practice with the bunshin was worth it brat." Naruto didn't mean to but he looked away guiltily from the young woman when her aunt was mentioned.

"I better go too sensei," Hana stated, following after her mother. She turned round as if to say something before giving up and moving away.

The ninja decided to throw her a bone. "I will be at the Garden tonight. Are you coming?"

"Yes sir," Hana said brightly smiling before jogging off at top speed.

"Not a single word," Naruto said instantly used to pre-emptive words at this group of sentimental people.

"Oi old man!" roared his nephew of sorts.

"Show Uzumaki-san respect Konohamaru-kun or I'll have to punish you!"

"When can I get away from you two?"

The group approaching was the new team seven. There was dark haired Sasuke acting all emo and irritating. He was in his blue high collared shirt with grey shorts. A sharp chokutō was strapped to his back that his aunt Mika had given him last year. Taking up the rear was Haruno Sakura, a pink haired blossom wearing a cheongsam that was an attempt to distract opposition. It was just like what her sister wore but in blue instead of the light pink she was sporting now. She had her staff twirling around elegantly trying to hit the annoyingly agile monkey like movements of his nephew.

"God he is embarrassing me," Naruto grunted. "Hold on." Naruto used an extreme burst of speed arrived between the two catching the pole with one hand while the other snatched the hand of his surprised brother.

"Let me go oji-san!" the boy complained. He had brown spiky hair, his forehead protector was resting on his bicep meaning he was going to get it scratched a lot and was wearing this skin tight jump suit in brown. This was the charge of his aunt, Namikaze Kushina who was rushing over to hug the Jinchuuriki of the Kyubbi no kitsune. It was no secret and the applauding gaze of the other adults in appreciation that their guardian of the beast had passed his exam.

This was a truly wonderful place to live in.

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	2. Path Of A Shinobi

Naruto: My Way

The Red Hurricane Of Konoha

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 2: Path Of A Shinobi

Disclaimer: In tribute to the mighty Uchiha clan I am issuing a new disclaimer which is this. If I owned Naruto I would have made it so Madara didn't take the piss with the super powers. Hey I'm bored I know I'll give myself the rinnegan!-Point taken no?

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The moon was overflowing with light framing the gentle velvety darkness lit up by the pinpricks of light that were the faraway stars. Astronomers claimed these may have worlds like ours, lands with different customs, language and tradition. Perhaps somewhere among those endless beads of light there was another world, another band of ninjas living out their lives with the aid of chakra.

Naruto was just interested in the continued safety of his village and tonight instead of parting at the Garden on his friends last night of freedom the red hurricane of the leaf village was on the hunt for a traitor.

His name was Toji Mizuki, a chuunin ranked shinobi of the academy once suspected of betraying an ally by killing him during a mission and subsequently banned from anymore sensitive assignments. He had been abandoned by the system and made a teacher by orders of the Hokage. The ninja moderately gifted but his personality profile matched one who would one day betray Konoha if his leash was loosened. The village had plenty of souls like that especially the leftovers of the last shinobi war that were kept loyal by the idea that they were being watched.

Usually it didn't warrant a jounin, especially not one with sensor skills like him to track a measly chuunin. But it was the crime the rogue shinobi had pulled off that made him a hot target worthy of every village bound ANBU and every available chuunin and jounin that could move swiftly into action.

He had stolen the forbidden scroll of seals. It contained the jutsu catalogue that every Hokage had added to over the decades from the Shodaime and his brother the Nidaime Hokage. It included contributions from the dearly departed Sandaime Hokage to Minato and his powerful list of techniques.…

That alone had motivated the powerful shinobi. Naruto's anger was off the charts hidden behind a chilly exterior that hadn't even managed to get home to change for the festivities before the ANBU captain Uzuki Yuugao had informed him of the situation. It had taken barely half an hour for his informants stationed practically everywhere within a ten mile radius to scour the entire village and find a lead with their delicate noses.

This information network had led Naruto to the Shodaime Hokage memorial forest just behind the school. It was dense, dark and close to the school grounds making it perfect in theory to hide in since only slivers of moonlight could get in. Not so far away was the automated sealed defence line meant to keep out people trying to blindside the village from a delicate aperture. He was following the word of an ally to hook up with another comrade and had already sent it back to inform his Kage of the situation.

"You're here nyan!" a small being with a tail said from beside him. Naruto stopped mid jump, back flipping to kill his inertia so to land sideways on a trunk.

"Report Kuroneko," Naruto demanded.

The cat slipped into the moonlight illuminating its perfect green eyes, luscious raven coat and a long slender tail with a metal dagger clipped to the tip. It was wearing metal claws on its paws and a forehead protector of Konoha around its stomach.

"The traitor just went past me and he wasn't alone. A woman was with him. She smelt like him too."

Naruto remembered the file had notes on her and like any patriot who memorised the people on watch list had took the time to examine the photo and basic summary. A woman named Tsubaki was a known associate of his and another chuunin on the watch list because of her association with that man. She was plain looking from her case photo and only promoted on the battlefield during the last war.

"Guide me and inform our friends to alert the ANBU to move on our position please."

"Okay Oyabun!" the cat chirped, taking a delicate sniff. "Been seeing Hana-chan lately?" Naruto rolled his eyes as the cat looked like it was yawning when in fact it was releasing a powerful high pitched sound only their clan was trained to hear. He waited ears pricked until they twitched and its eyes turned into those of a hunter. "Teams Alpha through Delta has been informed. The hunter cats are already stalking the targets so they don't get away and are awaiting your orders."

"Attack them. I have orders that the scroll be taken into custody as soon as possible. I'm moving in. Jump on my back," Naruto ordered, receiving a salute in return before the cat landed and curled around his neck like a scarf. "Lead the way."

Naruto expanded his chakra senses to their maximum range and found nothing ahead where he was supposed to run to. The blue eyed jounin suspected he was just a bit out of range.

The shinobi took the louder and easier way through the tops of the trees with the cat issuing instructions. He did large cat like jumps showing grace from years of watching the cat clan go about their business. He landed always on his feet, using the tops of springy trees to propel him like a slingshot when needed. The noise of the travel was hardly stealthy but he was in friendly lands stalking an enemy prey trying to flee.

The simple geography of the trees made it an easy task to get the traitor. The pair of them was already dead as doornails on the ground riddled with small cat sized shuriken and one fuuma shuriken had cleanly stabbed through the snowy haired Mizuki's chuunin vest pinning him to the ground. His partner Tsubaki, the poor deluded bitch was moaning while crawling on the earth floor like the worm she was. She weakly tried to rouse the chuunin cradling the forbidden scroll and all she would see in the darkness were thousands of yellow glowing eyes all peering with evil intent towards her. She was shivering; a layer of chakra denoting their neko ninpo techniques included their own brand of genjutsu inducing fear in the battered soul.

Naruto landed in the clearing quietly right in the centre of the star crossed lovers and buried his heel in the woman's skull with a harsh crack. She coughed for a moment then died mere moments later from blunt force trauma. He snapped their dog tags off their necks, checking them to confirm their identities as protocol demanded before dismissing the bodies as if they were trash. The ninja in disgust kicked the body of Mizuki enough like one would scrape dog shit from their shoes and retrieved the scroll.

His finger produced blue chakra and traced it over the paper. The large scroll plain as white rice started to shimmer as the security seals, blood, chakra and fingerprint were examined. To his relief no secret of his home was revealed to these unworthy bastards. He secured it to his back, whistling to issue the order for all the cats par the neko that had just ran onto the top of his head could leave. They all left leaving a blinding cloud of smoke.

"Inform the ANBU to meet me at the tower," Naruto declared, cracking his back, "Tell them the mission is complete and to get a cleanup crew to these coordinates. I want to get this done sometime tonight."

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The horrible buzz of the alarm was not a welcome sound. The man left it hanging for what seemed like eons until his tired frustration grabbed it off its pedestal and was thrown into the nearest wall that just so happened to be his bathroom mirror.

"I fucking don't know my own strength sometimes," Naruto groaned opening his eyes. It was black in this room. Someone had turned off his lights and wrapped him in his sheets since he had hit the hay as soon as he had gotten in from the incident the previous night. Hell they had even undressed him as Naruto had been too tired chasing that traitor. He made to get up but his arm was pinned by a warm body lying next to him. It made a feminine groan and bunched up the sheet he was trapped in.

"I just got in from a long shift and couldn't," the woman yawned, stretching a little under her protective sheet. "Be bothered walking home so please let me just sleep. I left a uniform here for me to change into."

"I put it in your space in the closet," Naruto informed her. "Now can you let me go? I have to go report to Tsunade-sama in under an hour and I don't need to leap from the window and get reprimanded again for a surprise visit from Tsume again so I need to shower."

The woman complained in inaudible sounds but relinquished her hold over the bed sheet. The red head climbed out of his double bed and turned on the light smiling at the cute way Rin huffed like pulling the sheet back over was hard work and trying to hide her face by burying her face into the mattress.

"Turn it off!" she complained. "It's my day off and I want to sleep off my triple shift in your comfy bed with no bloody beanbag and no dogs barking."

"Inuzuka Rin I would think you might be speaking blasphemy against canines," Naruto joked, yawning loudly. His eyes were still blurry and his knuckles were wiping sleep from them. "I am tired too."

"I did the autopsy," the woman known as Rin stated flatly, still grumpy from being awoken, "Your fur balls made short work of them. Tsubaki died from the head wound you administered but she was already dying a painful slow death beforehand. Mizuki was killed by his own weapon. They don't mess around for a clan of spies."

Naruto didn't even try to disguise his feelings towards those traitors or his pride that his summoning contract had more bite than people expected. "They don't compete with ninken in the tracking business but in numbers and teamwork they are better at gathering information," Naruto said, knowing his window sentry cats could hear the compliment thrown at them. They were like a crowd of old gossips and soon everyone would hear of their summoner praising their hard work. "They save me a lot of recon work and unlike those ninken they can actually fight pretty damn well."

Naruto stumbled on memory through the small bedroom plainly furnished with a walk in closed walk in closet, the double bed and a window covered by a blind. Naruto could see the portrait of his mentor Minato, his aunt Kushina and him as a kid sitting in the Hokage's office that Tsunade sat in now with Minato sitting behind the infamous desk during his brief reign. Kushina was leaning on one edge while Naruto was lying down on top of the paperwork with thumbs up and a gigantic grin. He had been so young then, so filled with hope and talent flowed in his veins aged eleven and a new genin.

"Does Ai-chan know you are here?" Naruto asked, echoing as he turned on the bathroom light and grimacing at the sorry state of the mirror with the remnants of the alarm clock in the sink. He plunged it out of the shallow pool of water Rin had forgotten to pull the plug out of earlier and threw it in the bathroom bin knowing Rin would clean it up when she was more awake.

"I had her make the excuse yeah," Rin grumbled mutinously, wrapping the sheet around her so she lied on her back with her legs up in the air before loudly bouncing them off the mattress to make her point.

Inuzuka Rin and Uzumaki Naruto had the oddest relationship on kami's green earth. They had drifted for nearly ten years on and off in this relationship that reminded him of the tide with both of them just coming and going never changing. She was a failed Inuzuka who couldn't bond with their canine allies and lacked their beastly attributes. She took their mark just before she was banished for several years until Tsume; her elder sister took command of the clan and brought her back into the fold. She was an extremely skilled healer, genjutsu user and had studied under the Yondaime. It was sad to admit that Naruto had been second choice after Kakashi rejected her advances and later on started dating Mitarashi Anko when the girl was barely fifteen. The stabilising influence the snake mistress gave the second coming of the white fang had turned Kakashi into a truly wonderful ninja who could let the ghost of his father be put to rest.

It had dragged on since then. In secret the duo practically lived together and had compensated off the other. This was why most people thought the red hurricane was a bachelor and Rin hadn't the Inuzuka mating drive. It worked for both of them and nothing was said about making it official. It was Rin who suggested taking on shy Hana's genin squad so she had a responsible teacher who would take her seriously. Naruto could only wonder what would happen when it all came out. It was shocking the pair hadn't been found out by now but Rin was a healer, meticulous in how to scrub down with scent remover.

Naruto turned on the small walk in shower and turned the water on. The cold water made his teeth chatter until the dodgy plumbing piped in the warm water. He washed his hair that took a long time, cleaned up his body and rubbed hard an entire bottle of scent remover from a shelf that had cases of the stuff into his skin hard.

It was something all jounin were issued as standard kit these days. If it helped throw off Inuzuka trained hunter nins then it was good stuff in their eyes. The research and development department called it their biggest discovery in the last thirty years. Naruto just used it to stop Inuzuka knowing his friend was really a bed mate/cohabiting couple… It was hard to define so after some whimsical thinking he went in the end with long term partner.

Once his skin was rawer than the colour of his hair he stepped out of the shower naked unabashed on the search for a towel. Somebody had taken the last one.

"Rin!" Naruto shouted, knowing the fuin painted on the walls muffled any sound made in this apartment. "Where are the towels?"

"I put them in the laundrette for you," Rin replied sleepily. Just use that fancy wind jutsu of yours or something. Just mind your mess. I just cleaned up in there."

"Sometimes I wonder if I should just call you my wife and say we did the mating rites," Naruto muttered. His hand formed a ram seal and a blast of wind blew around the entire circumference of his body drying him instantly. Personally the red haired ninja thought it was a waste of chakra but Rin had been in charge of the laundry duty this week or rather dumping it in the laundrette as neither of their homes had a washing machine.

"I will have it here for you when you get back today or if you are on a mission when you are home Naruto," Rin said, showing off her one skill picked up from the Inuzuka. Some damn good ears.

"Thanks babe," Naruto replied, stepping into the closet still yawning despite being refreshed by the shower and his long hair dry and more frazzled like an electrocuted cat. He opened up the closet, stepped in and came out in the same outfit as he always wore with his hair tamed somewhat with a naked Rin drabbed in the pearl coloured sheets with his forehead protector around her wrist.

Rin was a beautiful brunette woman with two perfectly rectangular purple streaks down each cheek. She had nothing that identified her as an Inuzuka otherwise but her big brown eyes reminded him sometimes of a puppy. She was making an effort to send him off in case he was sent on a mission and kissed him softly. Naruto returned the gesture and allowed her to tie his forehead protector around his neck. She had left a little scent but that was common about anyone touching a person and they were friends going back many years.

"Bye Naruto," Rin crooned, kissing him again. "Call me after seven all this week. I am working the day shift. We can have dinner tonight but I expect the Hokage will have you working a mission."

"I think she will too," Naruto said, kissing her cheek and heading for the front hall while pulling up his facemask, "I owe her for letting me have yesterday off to watch the graduation ceremony. See you and have a nice sleep for once you workaholic," Naruto waved his goodbye as he slipped into his shoes and walked out the door. He searched from side to side in his civilian mainly occupied block of flats to make sure nobody saw what was hidden inside his rooms. It was why he kept them. No shinobi to see his business, secluded and it was really cheap. He never understood why people preferred shinobi only places.

Naruto jumped on the railing separating the floor from the three stories below buzzing with children going to civilian trade schools or late for the academy and adults going about their business. He breathed in a gulp of fresh air and admired the view. Konoha was blossoming for another great day. The sky was nice and blue. The sun burned just hot enough for everyone to bask but not melt in the dense heat of the fire country.

Everything felt perfect. Now to make it that way and for that to succeed the ninja required sustenance. A gymnastic flip using his hands on the railing into a vertical summersault three more stories that with some redistribution of weight had him landing on the flat topped roof. He formed a half seal lazily and vanished in a flash of light scattering the braver pigeons that were used to the chakra wielding soldiers of Konoha's antics.

Naruto reappeared on a rooftop overlooking a market square. The rich scent of coffee filled his nostrils from below and grinning at his anticipated breakfast eagerly leapt from the roof at high speed, landing on one knee in front of the ninja catering coffee shop. The place was small but comfortable. It had busy staff working their asses off to get the orders made swiftly so their customers could get back to work swiftly and efficiently. It was just how the red head legend liked it.

"About time you showed up," Shizune scolded playfully, in one of the outside tables and was dressed in her usual comfy clothes. It was a quaint place with a large garden with tables for enjoying the day. They were all filled with shinobi even the cramped interior was packed with people. She was munching on something light, a traditional breakfast with a very non traditional bucket sized cup of coffee. The woman ran on the stuff. "I ordered for you," she stated with a wink. "Even though you missed sending off poor scared Genma. His little kunoichi is crushing on him. Inoichi passed by to warn him before he started teaching. Have you any tips?"

Naruto walked over and sat down. "Yeah avoid death defying situations and his natural charm will fade unless the Yamanaka girl has a terminal case of stupid," Naruto advised. He laughed and sat down where she uncovered a simple miso soup and fish breakfast. The ninja pulled down his mask and snapped the stuck together chop sticks together. "Thank you for the food." He began to eat silently with Shizune watching on. She sipped her coffee and read another one of those brain melting reports on something to do with administration. It was no wonder Naruto pitied her for being a "minion" of the Hokage. He would have handed in his resignation and had his chakra sealed before that fate was given to him. "Damn that was exactly what I needed Shizune-chan." He slapped the chopsticks down with a contented smile.

"I know you better than you know yourself," the woman said friendly. There was no spark between them. They were like brother and sister. Two peas in a pod well three if you threw in Genma as the little brother you tried to ditch when they got bratty on you. "And you barely function without a good breakfast. I am heading your way too so we can go together to see what Hokage-sama wants you to do."

"Going to finish your hundredth cup of coffee this morning before we head?" Naruto joked. "But seriously what job has she got for me?"

"It is A ranked so better keep it quiet," Shizune whispered with a wink. The red head nodded in concurrence.

On the scale of missions you could talk about all the horrific chores they tried to pass off as D ranked missions all you like. It was the same with C ranks unless you were handling information or escorting some rich people but anything above that from B to S rank missions could get you anything from ten years to beheading if you were caught talking about it and an enemy heard you.

Naruto ordered a coffee from the pretty waitress and made Shizune flush with double entendres. Shizune shot back by questioning his sexual orientation even if the woman was a hypocrite. Naruto retaliated with questions about her closeness to the Hokage and soon by the time Naruto finished his cup it was bordering ten am.

"We better head," Naruto said, pointing to the clock in the centre of the square.

"Can I have the cheque please?" Shizune called out. The staff, a small man with a balding head dashed forward and handed her the receipt. It was her turn to pay. Well it was Genma actually but the man had to attend to his new genin. The red head was expecting a plea for help by the end of the week.

"I got this one," Naruto decided, giving the man his money plus a tip. "I think since he isn't here I don't think you have to pay for once," Naruto declared. Shizune had banished any thought of his life to the side as she always did unknowingly. All his little problems would've swallowed him whole if she hadn't been there to talk to him about it. The wisdom she carried in her young mind had guided him past the death of the Yondaime aged thirteen. For twelve years she had taken the burden of his conscious willingly and his aunt had taken her fair brunt too…

He was surprised Namikaze Kushina didn't hate her nephew. It was his combined genius with the Kiiroi Senko as a newly dubbed teen that created the Shiki fuin. His aunt Kushina was truly a survivor and someone to be looked up to and respected.

"I should be worried then," Shizune said gratefully, "My teammate finally figured out I am a woman now."

Naruto groaned. That old chestnut had been brought up again. When their team had been formed shy little Shizune had not attended the academy and instead taught by Tsunade-sama directly. She showed up for graduation and the red head mistakenly with her baggy clothes and short hair cut thought she was an effeminate boy much like a lot of branch member Hyuuga boys were. It took until Taira-sensei who didn't ask for names just a display between new teammates had Naruto tackling her to the ground and was slapped for groping her breasts by accident to find out his assumption was incorrect.

"I am a gentleman and I always pay for good company," Naruto said, bowing to the blushing woman. She was that easy to fluster that the raven haired woman shouldn't ever try to tease anything. "Now shall we go my lady?"

Shizune formed the seal for shunshin and vanished in a whirl of leaves. Naruto waved to the shinobi and kunoichi and those in the know including the staff shielded their eyes as he performed his light shunshin in honour of Namikaze Minato.

Naruto and Shizune landed on the roof of a building opposite the Hokage tower and jumped down together. The red head had to jump from the wall to avoid landing on a distracted genin's head and the girl in question screamed and leapt at a wall head on. Naruto caught her by the arm before she sustained a concussion and sheepishly grinned at her in apology. The young blue haired girl blushed and giggled then took off at top speed reddening deeper by the second.

"You have a new fan girl then?" Shizune said laughing with one hand over her mouth.

"Why does this feel like you plan these things to happen to me Shizune-chan?" Naruto accused good-naturedly.

"You just have that much bad luck Naruto," she chided, slapping his shoulder, "Now we better not keep Hokage-sama waiting."

"She likes me so I'm not worried about being a few minutes late Shizune-chan."

"I'll tell her you said that Naruto," she japed back, stepping inside the building. Naruto saluted the two guards on duty, a pair of dying inside chuunin who half heartedly waved back. It was a short journey past reception and Haruno Sasaki handing them badges again. The badges were special, marked with reverse summoned seals that meant they never got lost or left the building so nobody had to return them to her personally. His oba-san had not enough to do it seemed.

They made short work of the stairs in silence, passing a chuunin team about to go on mission until the receptionist waved them in with no challenge.

"It is about time you got here Naruto," Tsunade declared. The poor woman had a pile of paperwork bigger than he was on her desk and already seemed drained and happy for an excuse to keep away from it. She was standing with an old drunk with a joined grey beard and moustache and spiky grey hair. He was short and the old man was built like someone who did a very physical job. His sloppy manner of dress, a simple grey sleeveless shirt and pants didn't help Naruto's opinion of the gentleman. "This is Tazuna from Nami no Kuni. You are to escort him and his supplies to build a bridge."

"Of course Hokage-sama I live to obey your commands." Naruto said. This was an A ranked mission? Shizune had taken her place at her master's right hand side and was examining the mission request ignoring his attempts to seek a silent explanation.

"Hey," the old drunk said guzzling a gourd of sake.

"Good morning honoured client," the hurricane recited standing stiff. Tsunade found his acting awfully amusing and so did his old teammate but it made the spectacled bridge builder look impressed. He would be willing to talk to someone who looked professional.

"This is an A ranked assignment for there is a bit of a gangster problem at present thanks to a man named Gato from Gato shipping."

"Gato shipping is the biggest exporter of luxury goods in the eastern elemental nations. He sells everything from food to expensive furniture. He even designed, built and sold the Kiri navy those new troop carriers that allowed them to invade Umi no Kuni a few years ago right?" Naruto was spot on with his data. He prided himself on it. Few could match it.

Unofficially Naruto recalled how the man was a suspect in over a hundred contract killings, prostitution, slave rings and drug manufacturing and distribution. It was only through money and the right contacts in the fire lord's court that he wasn't being some disgruntled horny man's bitch in maximum security and the fact nobody could get anything on the man. Any ninjas that searched before had never returned. Naruto would love to get something on him.

Tsunade was nodding her head showing how impressed she was with his intelligence of world events and avoiding saying anything particularly sensitive.

"Well we have reason to believe according to Tazuna that he has managed to obtain a stranglehold over the country by buying up legitimately their harbours you will be heading to with your partner for this assignment. He is running a little late. I had him collect his pack for this mission. You will escort the man and his goods to where his bridge is being constructed. You will then protect those people as it is being built."

"I have heard the mission parameters and they are understood ma'am!" Naruto saluted with a sly grin. Tsunade maintained her composure and so did Shizune since she was not the butt of the joke.

"Okay then Tazuna he and his partner will meet you at the North gate in twenty minutes and I pray this is worth me waiving your fee for this assignment. The village needs your ports open so we can swiftly offer you assistance when required."

"I am not lying and thanks for sorting it out for us. You won't regret coming to our aid. I have the ear of our daimyo and I will make him lower the taxation rate for goods exported to our country."

"That better not be an empty promise," Tsunade warned with a stern look that had the red nosed drunk startled but as soon as it was there it was replaced with a polite smile. "Thank you for coming to us about this."

The man toddled out of the room and the sound suppression seal was activated blocking all the sound from the room. The windows seemed to flicker as sunlight caught the incorporeal field of energy creating false images for any sniper and all the sound of any listening device that passed the barrier would come off as static.

"What are my other parameters Hokage-sama?" Naruto asked. "I know you wouldn't assign just me and this partner if it was just bandits or rogue samurai backing his corner."

"Officially Nami no Kuni is on the undesirable list among its surrounding nations. Rumours about the treatment of these villagers have reached our ears already and so have Kiri and Mizu no Kuni who happened to be once one of their biggest trading partners."

"It would make sense if they assigned at least a couple of shinobi to scout the area like we are."

"Exactly so I want someone who can swiftly scout and gather information that is you to find out all the weak spots in Gato's operation and then your partner will eliminate them all. I want Gato dead without anyone knowing Konohagakure was involved. Set up the Kiri nins to take the fall if you can so the focus is thrown off us. I do not want the daimyo to find out about this until we have collaborating proof which will mean I want you to kidnap his executive officer and if only you engage and any eliminate the rogue shinobi under his control."

"I understand." Naruto was getting a beauty of a mission. It was one that really worked with his contacts in mind. "Will I be required to kill any of them?"

"You leave Gato to your partner and the rest can be yours. This mission obviously has the time limit of how long it takes for him to finish the mission with Tazuna. If you have to you have permission to sabotage it if you need to extend it."

Naruto proudly said his thanks and the door's seal released. The door opened and in stepped his assassin that would be working with him.

Gekko Hayate was a competent enough Tokubetsu jounin with a horrific cough to the public. He earned his rank by unusually mastering the sword and the famous Mikadzuki no Mai. He had enormous chakra reserves a requirement of needing to master the infamous shadow clone technique that even Naruto struggled to learn due to the tremendous chakra demands. He was neatly dressed in his Konoha standard uniform and black bandana covering up but a few loose clumps of dirty brown hair. The infamous katana, something that was not standard equipment was proudly on his back ready for use. Naruto was almost fooled by his sickly ninja act. The whole look at me but dismiss me as a threat. He knew for a fact Hayate was deliberately inducing those coughs with drugs since he was a child much like his father who never failed to kill his target and get away without leaving a trace.

This man was the invisible man of the hidden leaf it's clean up guy and damn was he good at it. According to rumours among the ANBU he was friendly with this unassuming silent killer had over fifty high profile targets to his name including no less than the Kaminari no Kuni daimyo's youngest granddaughter, an act that was revenge for the attempt to kidnap the Hyuuga clan heiress some years previously. The old man had gone into seclusion and failed to name their heir negating any threat of war while they fought it out for who would succeed the old fogey pulling their powerful shinobi village into the conflict to restore order. In the chaos the Sandaime Raikage was assassinated and the new muscle head was put in charge.

"I am ready for my mission Hokage-sama." Hayate said coughing on cue. Naruto saw the gloved hand had a sealing array releasing an odourless and colourless gas into his face to lengthen his cough. "I will go and report to the gate as commanded. It will be nice to be working with you again Naruto."

"Let us hope it goes as smoothly as it did the last time."

All they had done was a smash and grab through the border of Kuma no Kuni, kidnapped an old man wanted for extorting a casino in Tanzaku who found it cheaper to have the man killed and have Konoha cover up all the evidence of their wrongdoing.

"It is all to protect the will of fire Naruto." Hayate said like a true patriot. "Goodbye Hokage-sama." The man vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Is that all Hokage-sama?" Naruto asked.

"It is that time of year Naruto so can we borrow Tora again this year? The genin teams haven't figured out they are chasing one of your summons."

"No problem Hokage-sama," Naruto insisted. He bit his thumb to gather the blood, formed the hand seals and slammed them into the ground with the necessary chakra requirements for the summoning jutsu.

A small fluffy brown feline with a red ribbon around its right ear appeared disgruntled. Tora, his codename was their spy in the daimyo's court. He was all prim and properly brushed like a show pet and was very disgruntled. But he was always that way. Being the pet of the infamous Madam Shijimi, the daimyo's wife he had to take extra lessons in how to avoid being crushed to death.

"Thank god is it the time of year already?" the cat complained. It stretched cracking probably every bone in its tiny body. "Hello Hokage-sama, oyabun."

"It is indeed the time of year again," Naruto affirmed, "We just need you to avoid possibly just ten teams this time. They haven't done their final genin exams yet."

"Its cool boss I just enjoy the time I get outside and away from the she hulk," the cat said, waving its paw dismissively at her. "I can spend some nights with the missus and the kittens too as well. I hate my job."

Naruto rolled his eyes. The cat had a nagging wife and a pack of delinquent kittens. What reason else did he not ask to be reassigned directly?

"I can ask the boss to have you reassigned. You are due to "die" anyway soon from old age."

"No," the cat retracted quickly, "I mean I will make do with what I have. I am the best spy you have after all."

"Well then obey the Hokage as you would me as usual."

"Have fun," Tsunade simply stated as she had done the other million times the cat was called into duty to help teach teamwork to the new genin. The cat saluted and vanished in a puff of smoke ready to start his job the next day. "I will pay you your usual C rank pay for the loss of your summon during this period."

The cat compound, a large well defended village on a guarded island had every cat summon in the entire world inside it. Their numbers were massive and he wasn't going to miss one but money was money. He just hoped the Hokage never figured that out.

"I will learn to survive as always," Naruto shrugged, "He already gets me an extra bit to my paycheque passing on information to the Intelligence department anyway."

"You are dismissed," Tsunade said, shooing him away, "I have paperwork for Shizune I mean for me to do."

"You have a good time with that Shizune-chan!" Naruto said merrily and entered the shunshin with a blast of light.

Twenty minutes later after a nice walk to see if any of the new genin teams had finished and had some ramen for lunch (He was low on funds until the end of the week) he was swift to check his storage scroll was tucked into his vest containing his supplies. He was very good at miniaturising storage seals without eroding their integrity but he was a fuin master. It was small potatoes to a guy like him.

The ninja decided to take a shortcut through the busy rooftops filled with ninja that would get in his way. He ran towards the white perimeter wall and jumped on it sticking to it with chakra on his feet. The ninja found his ally and the client waiting by the gate. He dashed the last few metres across the perimeter wall waving at a few guards he knew and then flipped over a long distance curving into a flying corkscrew to land right in front of Tazuna who jumped back from fright. Hayate barely blinked at him and wore his backpack ready to work.

"Are we going?"

"The convoy is waiting outside for us," the old man stated, "I want to get there by the end of the week."

The ninja plus their client went to the border guard station to begin their new mission with Naruto last thought being if his nephew had passed his exam.

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A/N Now we have Naruto on his mission. What will happen next I wonder?

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	3. A Volcanic Encounter

Naruto: My Way

The Red Hurricane Of Konoha

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 3: A Volcanic Encounter

Disclaimer: In tribute to the mighty Uchiha clan I am issuing a new disclaimer which is this. If I owned Naruto I would have made it so Madara didn't take the piss with the super powers. Hey I'm bored I know I'll give myself the rinnegan!-Point taken no?

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It turned out the route from Konohagakure no Sato to the borders of Nami No Kuni; the small island feudal nation was pretty picturesque. It had lots of beautiful forests that hadn't been created by the mighty Shodaime Hokage which were monstrosities with eighteen inch trunks and grew to nearly fifty feet in height. No these trees were of all different sizes, lengths and widths. They had never even been in contact with the Mokuton powers that supplied Konoha once a simple empty valley with all their building materials. Its wide and flat roads were little used maybe just a bit dustier than the more industrial roads with only a temple of fire monks to stop on during the way. They were very welcoming towards Konoha shinobi especially a man named Chiruku, a bald senior monk who had served with the deceased Sarutobi Asuma in the shinobi guardians of the daimyo.

That man had spent half the night asking questions about Konohamaru and sharing sake, something a junior monk three years younger told him the man rarely imbibed. In fact the last time had been the day he found out the Kyuubi no kitsune had killed his old friend.

Naruto hadn't felt so honoured since the Yondaime Hokage had given him his mastery in fuin techniques personally in front of all his family and friends.

It had started out a fun trip the first half of the trip on that convoy. Hayate really played his part well and looked weak while his eyes hid their killer instinct that always had his mannerisms no more than ten inches from his katana. A kage bunshin of his always sat underneath the largest convoy of wood made from the Shodaime northern forests past near the valley of the end. Naruto had observed everything and anything; his chakra senses had been active almost the entire time. Hells testicles Naruto kept his eyes closed after a while of seeing the same thing over and over, lay back and let them do all the work in conjunction with his hearing.

The trip though was totally boring towards the end. Two weeks had passed since they left the fire temple and Naruto had resorted to doing his monthly chore five times when the event in question had already been accomplished two days prior before he left the village. He drew new explosive notes and before that freshly starched the waterproofed paper. Naruto sharpened the shuriken he had on him and properly cleaned up his blade until he could have turned it into a mirror for his awesome face to be admired with.

Fuck Uzumaki "Konoha no Aka Tatsumaki" Naruto ended up giving away several rolls of the deadly homemade way better in a million years than shop made explosive notes to Hayate to share out to his friends when they got back home.

The convoy was nine caravans and five trailers all containing rope, fire retarding paint that was a good poison if you mixed it with tree sap and enough wood to fell a forest. It was lucky they had Senju Nawaki-sama to grow it every year. His son the honourable Senju Yamato was due to take over soon once his service with T&I or Torture and Interrogation department where he was a talented interrogator was completed. Hayate and he had the "enviable" job of occasionally jumping between carriage and large open trailer asking the civilian supervisors if everything was okay.

The worst that had happened had been the need to tighten a rope that was just a bit hard to get to while the convoy moved. Tazuna called the kid in charge; barely a child of eight years named Inari a pussy and Naruto had shined his gleaming blade using the sun to blind the ignorant old fucker Naruto later found out was the old guy's own grandson for some cheap revenge.

But the harsh treatment wasn't without cause. Around the campfire sharing stories while each shinobi took charge on lookout with several neko summons watching the ground ahead and reporting it the truth, the small horrors that mattered little on the large scale of things but made you truly feel for them when you heard the story face to face. Apparently the kids step-father had tried to rebel against the current regime in charge and only succeeded in being publicly crucified. The kid had reverted into a shell until Tazuna had dragged his ass kicking and screaming on this journey to save the village.

Yeah what a great idea Tazuna had taking a traumatised kid out on a dangerous trip for supplies to a bridge that already could have been destroyed? Naruto chuckled at a memory of a scheme of Minato's that happened pretty much the same way only Jiraiya was involved, a brothel too and two litres of methane soaked sake…

Moving on back to the problem child the kid was a petulant little punk like many of the morally washed out genin that came back from the third shinobi war. Hardened by seeing their fellow brother and sister shinobi killed pointlessly in some dead nowhere place. They had the same muddy eyes screaming of revenge and at the same time traumatised by their mind's amazing skills to torture themselves over things they could have done nothing to change. The kid wore his large brimmed straw hat well. It screamed of how standoffish he had become since the death of his father.

Tazuna, the incompetent grandpa was progressively getting more and more nervous the more they travelled to the country. From what intelligence Naruto had managed to gather by smuggling his fastest runner cat to slip on a Gato ship to Nami no Kuni the bastard was ready for them. It wouldn't be hard to track a convoy this large and the blatant involvement of Konoha shinobi to watch the transports.

Naruto had assimilated the likelihood of nukenin enemies to face and had studied the latest intelligence from the bingo book on any that happened to have their stomping grounds nearby. He had marked several of interest with his fuin ink making them glimmer in the dark so Hayate while on guard duty could tell who was on the list of interest and be able to read the book in the dark and to keep the old man none the wiser about their true plans.

Speaking of Hayate the schedule the man used in the island nation obtained by the same information from the cat he had stationed in Nami no Kuni's main city of oddly enough named Nami and eye witness reports from the workers was a treasure trove of local information. There together they plotted the demise of the bastard named Gato, the butcher of the business world. Oh they _plotted_ and it became a game once the planning had been fulfilled to come up with the most convoluted plot imaginable.

And surprisingly one of those from Hayate turned out to be better than the one they considered logical and within the best time frame.

They had a wickedly sadist approach in mind. Once they arrived Hayate was going to take "ill" and stay behind during the day. Their base was to be the house Tazuna lived with his daughter in. It wouldn't be hard to place a genjutsu on her to simply forget Hayate left the house on scouting missions. Naruto was a talented genjutsu user and almost prodigal at erasing thoughts or making you think what you saw was a trick of your imagination. The ill shinobi could use the transformation technique like a pro and since they would advertise Hayate's coughing sickness no shinobi of Gato's would suspect he was a threat.

If all went well there original three months timeframe was shortened to barely a week. Not bad for a plan conceived while "drunk" off your ass on monk made sake. Fucking job had them practically throwing down a hill full of alcohol neutralising tablets and acting up but they had to make it conspicuous for Tazuna the unsuspecting bridge builder.

But the drawback was everyone would be gunning for the red hurricane. Naruto had a reputation of advancing quickly up the ranks, several commendations for battle valour and being the Yondaime's apprentice. He had been accused of the bombing of the Tsuchikage's palace just barely missing the old fart by inches, the massacre at the Shiratori shrine and the invention of the underwater fuin bomb that played havoc with Umi no Kuni's remaining commercial shipping fleet as they attempted to surrender to the Kiri navy.

Naruto was the main player in those acts. His talents with fuin had earned him the respect of the Jibaku clan of Iwa. Everybody suspected they knew him perfectly talented enough to blowing up things that should have been impossible with paper sealed explosives.

They just couldn't prove it was him yet!

Anyway the day in question today was like any other. The sun was shining; there were no clouds and the straight road to Nami's borders was as boring and uninviting as ever. The only change was the view if he craned his head ahead was the emerging coastlines just beyond the horizon buried from normal view by yet another forest. The smell of fresh salt air was wafting in weakly peaked his interest again in this mission.

The smell was associated with home. The land of Uzushiogakure no Sato that led to the south was where he came from. His humble beginnings of being born in a boat house converted into a clinic by his proud mother Uzumaki Makie, child to his father Uzumaki Taro the current head at the time of the clan that ran the village. It was served by three vassal clans, one of which generally supplied the shinobi that ran its economy though talented civilians were taken in as well. They learned to walk in water before they even saw a vertical rock face and everyone was given a basic education in reading and writing to pick out budding fuin masters that gave the village praise. They're unusual longevity was traced to the Rikudō sennin, founder of the shinobi way.

They had once been a wonderful village, a jewel of the ancient shinobi world before the founding of the elemental nations and now… It was gone. Naruto had to bite back a tear every time that realisation got through the denial.

It was amazing what one familiar smell meant to a single person. Soon the taste of fish would lull him to recall in perfect clarity the features of Guren-sensei until they returned home where they would fade like the fog coming up unnaturally swiftly in front of them.

Naruto was on alert though the red head didn't show it on the outside apart from checking the direction the wind was blowing by wetting his thumb and reaching into the sky. He noted Hayate was also on alert. The swordsman had signalled with his fingers that he would watch the convoy and stood up only to fall down again. On cue just to maintain his cover that his sickness was chronic and to project deeper that his illness could strike at anytime the faker spluttered making a hacking sound. While at the same time the assassin bit down on a blood pill to give his hand the splodge mark needed for evidence later.

"Stop the convoy," Naruto said after using the shunshin to land next to Tazuna manning the front cart. "There is no wind to carry this mist about to surround us. Tell your men to seek cover under the vehicles and arm yourselves."

Tazuna nodded to obey, taking a swig of his sake. He took a whistle stashed in his pocket and blew hard into it. The sharp sound had the men hustling to get to safety underneath. The man blew again twice sharply to warn them to carry a weapon.

"You be careful you hear ninja," Tazuna encouraged in his own hiccupping way. The reek of alcohol was soaked into his clothes. Naruto hated alcoholics. It was no wonder the approach with the kid wasn't working.

"Just get to safety honoured client," Naruto asked seriously. He was standing as stiff as a board with his chakra senses now extended but right away he was getting the result the red head did not want. There was chakra soaked into this mist formation on the verge of swallowing him. The shinobi was unable to see past his hand. Naruto reached into his vest and drew three firecrackers. He lit them by rubbing two fingers composed of wind chakra together to make a flint to light and cracked them off the ground. He listened and a clone of Hayate silently landed behind him.

"What is it?"

"If you didn't know already this is not ordinary mist. A shinobi is behind this. But I cannot sense anything further because of the interference. I would advise you to keep an eye on the workers and Tazuna especially the kid Inari. He has a stubborn streak that is dangerous. Feel free to use those Kage bunshin of yours if need be."

"I will make sure to pass the message on." The clone exploded into smoke no doubt transferring its knowledge to its creator.

By now Naruto felt he had waited enough time to allow anyone using the mist to hide or scout their positions, worthiness of cargo etc if they were nukenin or if this was a genuine attack from Kirigakure no Sato and if so what reason would they dare attack within the fire nation?

Naruto pondered whether they had finally pinned some proof he was the Umi bomber while forming hand seals. He inhaled until his lungs were burning with air then exhaled it creating a massive gale that blew all the mist away from their positions. It was mere moments later after his jutsu was finished a whistling sound cutting through the air made Naruto draw his blade and grab it by both ends. His first gut instinct was a large shuriken like a fuuma shuriken making him calculate the sound according to his position and held the sheathed blade ready out in front of him to intercept it directly.

The zanbatō that was the source of the noise was unexpected. At the last minute the shinobi applied chakra to his feet anchoring his body to the delicate wooden floor underneath him in readiness for the extra weight. The pressure of which tore the wood apart on the trailer the jounin was standing on as the heavy chakras stuck fast to the floor. He stopped the gigantic weapon stone cold once its momentum was slowed, unsheathed his own blade in the middle to reveal two perfectly gleaming kodachi swords. He used one to spin the giant sword so it flipped into the air then snatched the unusual weapon as it came to land in the hole it had in the front with both swords to make a lever. Naruto spun around three hundred and sixty degrees and leapt upwards at the last moment to smash it in front of him into one of the monster trees to keep it out of the hands of his enemy.

"Now who uses big swords other than the Kiri no Shinobigatana Nananin Shu?" Naruto joked to settle his stomach. He had expected some Kirigakure people floating around here but one of the elite?

Why did these always happen to him? He was in a rumble with one of the elite of Kiri? And on Konoha turf? He was expecting some Kiri ninja in Nami but this was a ridiculous response.

Naruto's convoy had stopped at the mouth to a large and dense pocket of woodland just shy of the river system that fed into the ocean. It was like night in there, the sun unable to penetrate the thick thicket of healthy green trees leaving shadows easy to hide in. It was open plain for the one hundred metres between them and the tree line leaving the group without any cover from powerful area dependant jutsu. He activated his chakra senses and immediately two powerful chakra sources were detected.

"_A nice place for an ambush," _Naruto thought bleakly.

His senses picked up the formation of their chakra coils, the large burning blue blazes of chakras they had cultivated within their bodies and it wasn't looking good. They were powerful. One of them was almost on top of him and when Naruto twitched his ears, harnessing chakra through them he couldn't hear anything. The person was good at stealth or wearing something over their mouth. The other combatant was standing out of the way but was more controlled, denoting excellent chakra control and when he focused his sense more closely its power had been hiding the presence of a third shinobi with better still control but less chakra maybe a kunoichi. Naruto had never bothered to learn that much into the field of tracking with chakra.

Naruto in one practised movement sheathed the two swords together into one body and put it away with one hand while the other drew shuriken covered in tiny tabs of paper containing explosive notes between each knuckle. While the man threw those projectiles, soaking them in chakra to set off their five second fuses, his sword hand now freed grabbed a brace too and threw them at the same target, the person above him.

They missed, striking the tree branch the enemy was standing on.

"Heart, Liver…" Naruto grinned as the silent explosives exploded cutting off the rather dramatic speech Naruto bet the male ninja practised in the shower meant to spook him. The man had managed to escape somehow and crashed down onto the trailer looking pretty dazed.

His skin was as grey as rhino hide and he had a penchant for snow camouflage with the arm warmers worn on each arm. He was topless apart from a belt sheath that ran from hip to shoulder and as suspected the man with short black hair and his forehead protector lopsided so it sat around the curve of his skull was wearing bandages to hide his breathing. His grey striped pants contained no obvious weapons or equipment most of their profession took and the fact he was dazed said little of the man's obvious skill to hold one of these legendary swords.

Naruto just wished he knew what one this guy was. He had met the traitor Hoshigaki Kisame, the one who looked like a fish and member of the strange group Jiraiya had spoken of after the bijou but the rest? Their Mizukage had only put down a rebellion of the bloodline holding clans a few years ago and had never participated in the last great shinobi war.

Naruto formed a genjutsu and vanished. He reappeared and the man playing dead took a swing with a knuckleduster and hit nothing but air. As one red head turned into nothing Naruto appeared again about to impale him with both swords when a senbon struck him in the neck or it would if that was the real gunmetal coloured vest wearing veteran. It shimmered out of existence, Zabuza sweating from nearly dying from needle to the throat if he hadn't tilted his head in the last possible moment and the real red hurricane was on top of the swift newcomer spin kicking them in the face. The newbie much weaker than the male landed on top of their ally where three kunai with tags the blue eyed Konoha ninja kept in a secret pocket inside the lining of his gunmetal grey vest were thrown while in the air. The weapons with a thudding sound made a perfect triangle setting off the barrier tags creating a perfect golden pyramid cell to contain them.

"Hayate watch them," Naruto cried out. "I'm going to go after the third one."

"There is no need to do that," a feminine voice stated. The last signature the strongest if you accounted for her chakra control keeping the flares of raw chakra in her tenketsu to a minimum. "Zabuza and Haku were stupid to simply charge after you. If it means anything we come in peace Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto knew the politics were on his side. They had attacked ninja in their home nation. The backlash and backhanders needed to stop the Konoha/Suna alliance forces from kicking the crap out of the depleted Kiri was going to cost big once the news broke out. The fight had been unpremeditated on their side. Naruto saw no reason for her lying to him.

"I accept the ceasefire," Naruto said, not lowering his weapons. He had shimmered back into existence behind the woman who was hidden in the darkness and his talking illusion just disappeared. She didn't react to the swords pointed at her heart and groin. He held them ready to spin on the spot and slice her into little pieces with wind chakra enhanced chakra strikes from point blank range.

"You have to be Konoha no Aka Tatsumaki, the red hurricane who hails from my homeland of Uzushiogakure no Sato," the woman stated calmly. Naruto stiffened at the reference to his homeland but held steady. "I am Terumi Mei and I apologise for what happened here. Zabuza and I were on assignment here with his apprentice Haku and we needed intelligence."

"So he decides to jump a convoy? It doesn't seem like he is the one who usually plans the strategy."

The strain in her voice spoke just as much as her words. "I was observing the convoy and took my eye off my associate. He was forming the seals for the hidden mist technique before I had the chance to stop him," she admitted, "I was careless. Now can we discuss this Uzumaki-san? I took the Uzushio oath too long ago. I can remember you."

"I do not remember you," Naruto said flatly, not appreciating the poor attempt to get him to lower his guard. "Nobody survived that battle apart from me. The Terumi clan were cowards who deserted before the fight even started. After that I didn't care what happened to them."

The three clans of Uzushiogakure no Sato who served the Uzumaki clan were the Sakurazaki clan that held the shoton bloodline and Guren-sensei hailed from them. There was the Tamaki clan powerful ninja who used techniques using instruments. In other words they specialised in genjutsu and in the case of the head or heir, a summoning contract and of course the Terumi clan. They held either one or two bloodlines. They had the powers of the futton (boil release) and yoton (lava release). Those cowards had fled before the inevitable destruction of their home.

"I remember you being the last child born on our lands."

"My lands," Naruto corrected, "The land of the loyal few who stayed behind to die with honour. The people that helped get me to safety. You have no claim to my homeland Terumi-san and saying you do have anything to do with Uzushio spits on the honour of my family. Now please before I just decide to kill you and the Hokage grills your kage into dust for authorising this intrusion in our home you will tell me why you are trespassing on my home soil."

"I am sorry," the woman said solemnly, "But you do not know the truth." The woman turned into mud and a kunai was placed against his neck. Fuck when had she made the switch? His replacement was faster, the wooden block contained a flash bang that made the woman have to shield her eyes and his flying corkscrew kick with both feet broke her guard and struck her in the shoulder knocking her back.

Terumi Mei had the same shade of red hair as his aunt only tied into a column ponytail that flowed like a lava stream down her back. Her jet black dress was shoulder less showing a pale neck and lined with fishnet. It cut off just shy of her thighs and was very alluring and to top off the sensual ensemble her forehead protector was replaced by a blue stone necklace displaying her allegiance.

Her hands formed hand seals and Naruto mirrored her actions. While he released a wind bullet and strafed right to flank the red head once it was discharged the woman created this volcano shaped defensive cone with powerful steam spilling out of its mouth that blanked the wind ball like it was an insect bite making him stop and withdraw.

"Naruto," Hayate bellowed out, coughing hell spluttering for about half a minute afterwards. Hayate had to move more than he should have spoiling his act but his shadow clones and swordplay were keeping the women away from her targets the people locked up in the barrier. The original swordsman was still spluttering but if the woman slipped out anything that the bridge builder might hear the entire operation could be shot to hell!

The red hurricane had been fooled! The woman who had both of the bloodlines had made this big distraction, replaced herself with a clone while the bitch engaged his ally. Naruto poured chakra like a forest fire into his shunshin making no show like usual and emerged to her left where both kodachi swords danced with the wind whipping up a hurricane that allowed him to briefly hover. A flash of steel, a dancing whirl of swords had her retreating to a safer distance.

That had been too close. Naruto steadied his anger and breathed in synching his chakra flow with his intake and outtakes of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

"Are you alright?" Naruto asked. Hayate was moving his eyes in a very simple method of one blink for yes and two for no while holding his mouth to cough. One blink said yes and the fact he was still acting showed his confidence in the red head was incredible. Naruto felt honoured "Can you watch the tags?" Hayate blinked once while maintaining his coughing. "They are easy to dislodge so if you have to set off the fuses that narrow the alignment beams and turn those people inside into dust."

He absently flipped hand grips and blocked the incoming shower of earth shuriken earning the name of the shield swords he carried. On a flip one hand dropped and then retook a sword into an attacking stance and channelled wind chakra into the metal. The blade of wind grew several feet and he slashed the air releasing the giant curved projectile of wind at his enemy.

Terumi was driven back from her second advance to her people. The smaller kunoichi trapped with her dazed friend was young. She could have been Hana's age wearing a baggy blue kimono and long hair tied up so her fringe kept it in two black lengths held there by her forehead protector. She was a beauty like the woman diving into the heart of her volcano blocking their path. The distance between forest, plain and convoy had been reduced dramatically and the smell of the sea had been burned up by the abrupt increase in temperature.

In the end the woman and rhino man were just two corpses once the red head got round to interrogating him. That would be just after the red haired witch died of course. He didn't need three prisoners… No that was not his anger talking, his resurgence of emotions bottled up since Uzushiogakure died and the internal conflicts that rose from participating in the third shinobi war. And no! He was not hearing the drums. No he did not take notice of the rousing pounding of his heart screaming to kill his enemy before they destroyed his home.

Auntie Kushina would be having another late night up once her nephew made it home.

Naruto sheathed his kodachi swords once more and slipped them into his belt. He stared the woman down who defiantly stood by her volcanic manifestation. By his estimate the steam would be useful in generating water jutsu or another mist. The volcano provided fuel for her yoton and damn it the thing was blocking the convoy.

Naruto made the first move of his offensive. He formed hand seals and bounded into the air spinning in a perfect circle. His red locks grew and enveloped him spitting out fine red needles at his prey but unlike his predecessor and his sensei his technique didn't stop once the needle spray was completed. No! A massive circle of wind chakra inspired by a Hyuuga friend, the head of the branch family no less Hizashi propelled the razor sharp haired warrior who had turned his hair into a single savage chainsaw like blade of wind sharpened hair to turn the man into a lethal weapon.

He was only stopped when he hit the dirt that made up the volcano. He unravelled his jutsu after an oppressive heat was almost on top of him to find hot lava was about to spill on him. The Konoha jounin substituted a metre away and at the corner of his eye channelled wind chakra to his fingers to chop a kunai in two. The other was busy weaving a genjutsu to alter his enemy's depth perception just enough for his fingers with a lengthened edge to nick her neck. The stream of blood was real when his lips captured the taste of copper and his finger dashed alongside her pale neck to scoop up a sample before Mei pulled away with another earth clone.

But it was enough. A small scroll in his vest was released and written on it across a small spiral symbol denoting something about linking and chakras. He slapped the trickle of blood along the main symbol and threw chakra into its sensitive paper.

"Your time is up!" Naruto grinned, "Seal!"

The seal paper ink started to warp creating the kanji for Terumi Mei and underneath a very nasty curse prison lock was activated. He threw the scroll away, discarding it like trash but the powerful ink vanished and the next thing anyone knew Mei was one minute back by her volcano and the next on the ground with her legs covered in black ink. It went from foot to knee where a circle was formed on each knee cap that stole her ability to walk. The same symbol was growing to encompass every limb, every chakra pathway right throughout the body. Her hair changed black to the roots like her dress, her eyes white as pure snow. A soft cry was all she made before she was down for the count.

Naruto had borrowed the idea from the traitor Orochimaru and his cursed seal. Add a dash of blood to a sealing array and borrow some mechanics from the Konoha ink ninpo arts and eureka a sealing method that unless you immediately evacuated the area was going to chase you, capture you and then make you a prisoner in your own body. It clogged up the tenketsu, narrowed the narrow chakra pathways and robbed you of your limbs by attacking the joints where usually important sub gates that only medical ninja bothered to remember where there were normally protected by the thick bones were shut down and disrupted the nerves tightly woven into them.

Now that was a great idea but it had its flaws. The buggers were time consuming to make and you did need to first get that blood from your enemy and set it all up. If your opposition knew what you were doing most would prevent you from ever trying to either. And if they had enough time to manifest their chakras if they were powerful enough… Naruto hadn't tested their chakra stress limits with anyone other than a minor league jounin in the name of his aunt.

"Hayate!" Naruto commanded, "I've beaten the woman. Just let me clear up the mess and we can be on our way!"

"I will get the men ready," Hayate replied coughing. "What do we do with the sword? It's worth a fortune!"

"It'll make a nice souvenir for Kono," Naruto joked, watching the symbols on the woman start to distort. As he feared she was no weakling in the chakra department. "I better get on with it then."

Naruto planted his feet to the soft ground beneath him with chakra. He held out his left hand and summoned a blue spiralling sphere into his hand. He cultivated its growth, the ball of concentrated chakra growing larger and larger until it was the size of Gamabunta-sama's head. He created a distortion where chakra met flesh creating a tiny spark as he applied a chakra string to its edge that grew as the sphere did like a ball of yarn. Then he aimed and fired with devastating results.

His rasengan dan had its flaws and was in the experimental phase but fuck did it cause destruction. The ball with a tail of chakra still attached to his hand shot out, struck the volcano in its path and obliterated it not allowing a thing to escape its maelstrom including the poor jounin that was moments ago a giant pain in the ass.

But his luck hadn't held. The aftermath showed the woman had escaped her bonds and blindsided him by elbowing forward using the course of the sphere to catch him off guard with her unconventional attack. Naruto barely formed a replacement, using one of her still hot lava rocks slapped with another flash note to blind her.

Naruto snarled at the basic bunshin that had fooled him, as if the woman was mocking the genjutsu user and just noticed the rumble underneath his feet to jump up and catch her rise from the softened soil to snatch him to catch her in another genjutsu only this one she didn't buy and grabbed his foot and power bombed him into the ground with unexpected strength in her limbs.

Naruto was dazed but as ever slapped on a flash tag to his vest and detonated it. The tag in turn set off an explosive note hidden in the lining of the gunmetal vest and this time Mei had to have been killed! It was point blank range. Nobody just shrugged that off.

But the damn woman defied him once again. She had miraculously passed him and was after the convoy with her comrades held prisoner. Hayate didn't move, still the cucumber playing his part and allowed Kuroneko to pounce from underneath the convoy tail swiping at her throat. The rock clone that exploded showering fragments of heated rock had the kitty cat using its version of the shunshin to escape serious burns while Hayate flicked away anything coming at his flesh with his sheathed sword.

The blasted Kiri kunoichi was spotted again thanks to Hayate's prompting being right next to the seal array to her colleagues. Damn the Kiri woman was swift and her taijutsu looked a lot like the style practised at home. Hell it was practically the same as his own. She was studying the fuin on one of the kunai as fast as her eyes would go, her restored red hair fluttering with the wind created by the destruction wrought between Uzushio survivors.

"Hayate fall back," Naruto shouted, forming the release seal for the kunai. The tiny explosive carved into the middle of the metal centres with delicate tools detonated just so the alignment beams of the pyramid would collapse and poof like a microwave the duo of ninja were incinerated.

Or rather one of them was killed off. The problem with barriers was they flickered before they failed and miraculously the younger kunoichi had survived the implosion. Mei grabbed her colleague and went to get the sword maybe a sentimental reaction until the convoy workers started rallying to stop her. She hesitated sadly staring at both the charbroiled meat that was her comrade then confusingly to Naruto before vanishing in a cloud of steam.

"What was that all about?" Naruto asked himself out loud before dismissing it and walking to the sword. It had been a joke to give it to Kono. A ransom demand for a legendary sword of one of the deceased Kiri no Shinobigatana Nananin Shu would benefit his clan's standing with the Hokage immensely and bolster their newly reformed reputation. He unsealed a new vest armed with new equipment from his pouch and took out a storage paper that grew from the seals distorting its spatial composition where he had loaded a lot of exotic tools and equipment. He painted a new seal for his new zanbatō smirking at its rather literal name _Kubikiri Bocho or _giant decapitating carving knife written on its blade and locked it away.

"That will attract the woman you know," Hayate stated. "She might come back to avenge her team. She does have that girl still too. You might want to reconsider painting a target on your back."

"I hope it does," Naruto remarked boldly. That woman had been a powerful opponent all wits, strength and guile thrown in with some flimflam tricks. That was a true kunoichi like his student Hana, her aunt Rin or Shizune and the Hokage. She could even be a kage if the rumoured Jinchuuriki kage of theirs relied on his demon and not his smarts. Anyone could lock up a Jinchuuriki if you knew how. "But let us get moving." Naruto stretched his senses out and listened for the laboured breaths of an alcoholic he wanted found. Unfortunately most of the men were hardened drinkers but it took an old man scolding a kid hidden by the mass of bodies staring ghoulishly at the corpse of a proud shinobi to locate him. "Deal with the old man. I need a nap." He went to find a shady place, the plan for this mission changing to include the woman with fiery red locks and a descendant of the clan who abandoned their home just when they were needed. "And don't wake me until we get to the port."

"No problem," Hayate declared businessman like with his eyes narrowed as if to point at the corpse, "Let me clean up the mess too."

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A/N There is chapter three. I bet you didn't see me killing off Zabuza in a rather anticlimactic fashion ^^

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	4. The Consequences Of Violence

Naruto: My Way

The Red Hurricane Of Konoha

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 4: The Consequences Of Violence

Disclaimer: In tribute to the mighty Uchiha clan I am issuing a new disclaimer which is this. If I owned Naruto I would have made it so Madara didn't take the piss with the super powers. Hey I'm bored I know I'll give myself the rinnegan!-Point taken no?

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Four long days had passed in Nami No Kuni. The mission to guard the construction of a super wooden bridge from the island nation to the mainland of Hi no Kuni was on schedule. Their arrival had been met with quiet fanfare, the installation of materials and the continued construction of the bridge was on schedule and Naruto had the easiest time of things. There had been no sign apart from a few minor skirmishes that didn't match the parameters of their assigned task to intervene and only one act of sabotage resulting in the loss of six workers living in nearby worker quarters.

Naruto did have to make sure they didn't get too far ahead and their arrival had bolstered the workers spirits to the point they were interfering with their deadline. They had one more day before they moved in to strike the enemy down and his orders did have the option of sabotage and blaming it on Gato if it allowed the shinobi time to execute their real mission, the one Konoha really wanted done.

But in the background of this sleepy cowardly nation the game was afoot. Behind the scenes while Naruto publicly guarded his client on the bridge by day and Hayate performed his scouting role while deceiving the very gossipy opium using daughter of the drunken builder the cat clan had scrambled nearly triple their usual complement scrounging around the country for information. No stone was unturned in the hunt for intelligence.

From the daimyo palace on the north ridge protected by an inlet wall to the poorest slum of the capital city the army of small unnoticed minions were appropriating, dissimilating and then funnelling the necessary and pertinent facts and rumours back to mission control. They planted camouflaged explosives with six month long shelf lives onto the stolen naval fleet of Nami No Kuni as they had done many times before, assassinated key figures pertinent to their operation and stalked their master's prey relentlessly at all times. No matter what Gato or his executive officer was doing they never left their sight. It didn't matter if the little dwarf man bathed or went to the bathroom, there was no privacy for Gato or his officer when they fornicated or imbibed in alcohol. They had no secret pleasures and nothing for them that wasn't memorised and revealed to the jounin in charge.

But on his perch atop one of the construction site's support towers Naruto was bored out of his mind. While Hayate ran around investigating potential sites of ambush for Gato the hurricane did his role as guardian of the bridge builder and his men. He observed their daily lives searching for insurgents in the gang of builders, analysing their habits and assigning cats at the dead of night to investigate further when needed.

So far Gato had lost two informants in the construction crew. They had been made to look like suicides, an easy factor to believe in this impoverished and downtrodden nation but the adult ninja was positive there were more of them. The information the felines had gleamed beforehand had been undoubtedly useful.

Gato was the pseudo daimyo of this nation. He pulled the strings behind the scenes and made this land his personal kingdom. He reduced a thriving shipping nation to a squall of poverty and disease. His soldiers everywhere apart from this small town where the entrance to the bridge was being constructed was drinking, pillaging, raping and collecting taxes although the latter was almost the same as the former three. They ran around like they owned the place but wisely kept their distance. So far the red head hadn't even needed to lift a finger and that led to the man dwelling on the events leading to this point.

Terumi Mei, without the surname up till now to alert the red head one of those fool beasts were still among the living was in his bingo book at the very back listed as a jounin of the hidden mist as one of the A ranked ninja under their command. She was just beneath their infamous seven shinobi swordsmen in reputation. Her file was rather slim like most from the insular hidden village that had just emerged from a civil war battered, bleeding but still alive and fighting.

His bingo book was dog eared in the section listed under independent nukenins as it was every year he was supplied with a new one. The fruitless search for Guren-sensei and his undying faith she survived the slaughter or even maybe a member of the sly Tamaki clan had always led him to misery. The mission here had brought back a collage of memories from that time. The smells, the fishing villages that reminded him of his own homeland and hell even the songs the fishwives sang when doing their daily chores were the same.

Just because he was a professional killer didn't mean he couldn't reminisce or wish things had been different. Don't take that the wrong way as Naruto loved Konoha and he had no plans to ever betray it. The place had been shelter then a reason to fight for in the third shinobi war. He had met his mentor there, his grandfather figure and his biological aunt treated that land as the last bastion of the Uzumaki clan and in this political climate with the military build up in Kumogakure and the continued resentment leftover from Iwa made anyone forming a village with affiliations with Konoha dangerous. Just the previous year an economic crisis in tiny Takigakure had made them retire several ninja just to avoid becoming insolvent.

And it wasn't like you could make a village with two people.

Naruto inwardly scolded himself for being so damn sentimental. That damn Terumi woman had opened up a scabbing wound inside his heart and damn it the red head had learned to close up emotion a long time ago. Instead he filed away those feelings and replaced them with an appreciation of the ocean view, the scent of salt and the chatter of the workers below him.

"Oyabun," Kuroneko whispered as an invisible weight landed on his shoulder.

"Report," Naruto requested, leaning back to improve the illusion that he was alone. The nervous workers had taken to watching him whenever they could like if they didn't he would find a chance to flee and leave them to their horrible deaths.

"The executive officer is leaving tonight on a boat to Kuma no Kuni. Squad nineteen heard it from the ship captain."

His recollection suggested according to the position of the sun that the fat argumentative old fart that passed for a sea captain had lunch soon. Maybe he should order the food to be tainted? Or perhaps sink the ship they were in?

"Remove the captain and delay the ship without making it look suspicious and then report back to me."

The weight left his shoulder and apart from a rush of air there was no more trace of his cat general.

"I wonder what they will come up with," Naruto mused to himself quietly. Those thought carried his time on guard for the rest of the day, past lunch and into the evening where he had to witness the self destruction of an entire family.

The man Kaiza who Naruto found out was a wandering fisherman who just happened to come here, settle down and become the glue that held Tazuna and his family together was a remarkable man. The simple fisherman had performed brave deeds for an untrained civilian and had foolishly died taking on a group one call to Konoha or Kiri would have eliminated them without this painful state Nami put itself in. Once dead his wife had torn his face off all his pictures on the walls and in her albums and turned to drugs to ease the pain, his father in law was drinking himself into an early grave and as for the kid…

Nobody had seen Inari since the group had arrived in Nami No Kuni. The last Naruto had heard from the kid was a half hearted shout about seeing some friends then nothing. Tazuna had despaired and drank himself stupid and his mother was more spacey than she was normally according to her neighbours Naruto had spied on to make sure they weren't informants. But at the same time apparently the annoying child was prone to disappearing for days at a time and not to be nasty Naruto, the shinobi didn't care what happened to him. Sure he emphasised with the loss of his father role model but it didn't control his life.

The crumbling of the family unit became rather obvious that every day without fail the drugged up woman publicly tottered to the bridge to feed her father some very meagre rations complete with sake for lunch. She would scold him for drinking, and then hand the bottle anyway to her father like a hypocrite. Naruto then watched the woman burst into tears when her silent question after looking around hopefully for her son was met with a sharp shake of her father's head and she would run away back to her house, to her stash she kept under the floorboards to ease the pain.

It made Naruto almost happy his family business was the shinobi trade. Random drug tests for opiates were commonplace and it was not unheard of to be tested seven times in a week as Kakashi-san had once been subjected to. Ninja addicted to drugs were not productive warriors and there was a special rehabilitation ward in the maximum security wing of the hospital built specially for drug addicts. It was sealed tighter than a drum and the intensive genjutsu therapy, drug treatments and counselling worked better when Tsunade instituted the reforms. The old chuck them into prison to rot when they could be rehabilitated was a very archaic practice only still used as far as Naruto was aware in Iwa or they used the drugs as incentive for the men to work harder.

But the peace the ninja had enjoyed was not to last. As the moon came to rise in the horizon, shining the blackened sea with light and the men were going home for the night their bridge only requiring another two days work Naruto found out when he shared lunch with his co-workers an unusual disturbance came to be.

A gigantic cloud crackling lightning grew in strength in the distance, advancing swiftly to their position while its lighter cousins lazily drifted. And strolling to the bridge on his own was a cloaked man. His hair was as grey as Kakashi's but it ran loosely down to his shoulders and every part of his bare flesh except for his head the newcomer wore bandages where bare skin would be and to top it all off wore clashing grey pants and a purple sleeveless robe.

Naruto had seen his picture in the Kiri section of the bingo book. The man was a punk dubbed a B rank for his ownership well stolen anyway of the legendary swords known simply as the Kiba. Those small short swords unusually built with two protrusions that helped form sickle like shapes on both sides supposedly conducted lightning in a similar manner as the stolen weapon the Nidaime Hokage once did only it was designed more for long ranged jutsu.

The piercing blue eyes of Kurosaki Raiga were the thing to look for according to the distinctive features section of his profile. There was the glaringly overstated fact the man was a thief and not that great as a shinobi compared to the predecessor who originally claimed ownership, the mighty Ameyuri Ringo. The original owner had a record that the red head almost envied for the exploits listed.

After four days this was what Gato had lined up to take him on? Naruto felt oddly offended that they would send a lightning natured shinobi after a notorious wind user. Didn't Gato have any clue at all about shinobi? Even schoolchildren at the civilian schools were taught the various differences in elements to smell out the promising civilians to suggest going to the academy.

He was going to collect some more prized treasures of the Kiri shinobi force today. The favours he was going to earn from the Hokage… Naruto grinned that he mockingly kept as the ninja jumped down from his nest onto the bridge properly.

"Fuck it's one of his ninja guards," Tazuna grumbled under his breath, taking sadly another swig of his booze. The man was already rather unsteady on his feet which his workers took note of with various different looks of disgust to resignation. "You get him shinobi," Tazuna commanded.

And without any word to confirm the command Naruto vanished in a burst of speed. His twin kodachi swords clanged off the infamous Kiba swords of his surprised opponent. Raiga attempted to push him back but Naruto as planned pulled the intertwined swords together and flipped up catching him in the jaw with the sole of his foot. As the red head flew back from his somersault a lightning ball created by placing the unusual swords closely together was batted aside by a pair of wind blades. The enemy was clearly stunned at the ease of Naruto's ability to neutralise his attacks.

"I am Kurosaki Raiga, former swordsman of the mist," he bellowed, trying to psych out his prey. Naruto rolled his eyes at the blatant lie of having ties to that elite force, dashed forward and entered a one sided exchange of sword blows.

While the Kiba were intricate weapons needing specialised training to use their unusual design clearly meant for snaring or vicious slashing tactics this man had no real idea how to use them. Naruto meticulously cut him with small shallow cuts, shifting easily through sword forms hoping to see something useful and milking the maximum amount of pain the jounin could dish out without inducing a serious injury. All it was right now was a deceptive attempt to lure any additional reinforcements out by looking weak. His chakra senses were scouring the immediate area and nothing was there. Then just after some time and nothing coming out to help the grey haired over confident shinobi the bored red headed Konoha ninja threw one of his kodachi infused with wind chakra at his enemy that went through the wooden bridge and embedded itself in the stone support column underneath with a crunching sound.

And just as Kurosaki dodged it and made to mock his enemy Naruto shimmered out of existence, his damage to the bridge was discovered to be another illusion and the cold steel of both blades was revealed to be stabbed into the lightning user's throat and out the other side just deep enough to cut the delicate flesh of his chin. Naruto was revealed as the holder of the weapons from directly behind the dying shinobi, decapitating the former Kiri shinobi by drawing each sword in the opposite direction from the other before finally slapping an explosive tag onto the Raiga's falling torso. To make sure Naruto and the bridge was clear from the blast radius the teen hurricane kicked the corpse's torso with considerable force aided by his body being propelled by wind chakra. There the body fell into the ocean minus his infamous swords where a powerful splash declared the end and cremation of the Kiri ninja.

That had been too easy and his enemy was laughable. Gato simply had to be just that brilliant at deception and blackmail as the midget had no idea how to hire competent ninja after people like the Konoha no Aka Tatsumaki. He had even allowed the short shrimp to find out very easily his true identity in the hopes of at least spooking the man and forcing the little man to deviate from his normal routine. All in an attempt to help Hayate cover up his tracks when he actually got round to the job of slaying the corrupted bastard. Ah but what could you say? It lessened his threat level and Naruto could relax a bit more.

"He was hardly worthy of breathing the same air as me," Naruto stated blandly. He barely registered sealing the Kiba swords into the seal laden paper he used for Zabuza's sword. "Do any of the Kiri no Shinobigatana Nananin Shu deserves the title as the best of their village?" The speech was to aid in the adulation and distraction of the bridge staff from Konoha's other mission and judging from the loud and infectious cheering that echoed through the bridge he was successful. It was a bonus the Uzushio native felt warm and proud of his victory. He had killed so many yet so few were given any sort of recognition for the peace they brought by the person dying.

Naruto examined the bingo book; rolled his eyes once more at the paltry payment for just Raiga's head and bit back the urge to smirk at the payment for the return of the priceless swords. After viewing the head, the cocky expression still there meaning the man had died before he knew what had happened to him and just to endear himself even more to the bloodthirsty crowd already celebrating stuffed the head with another bomb and threw it over the edge. They whooped at the wave in the sea made from the bang. And Naruto barely took any mind to it or the crimson water floating into the shadow of the underbelly of the bridge. It wasn't like he was going to run out anytime soon.

Naruto had long understood why the common people liked fireworks so much and Naruto hadn't been totally aiming to impress. That was something he made standard issue practice for all hunter ninja. But he was aware that if you gave them a bang they would worship you. He had learned the significance of that a long time ago.

"We are having a party at my place!" Tazuna declared proudly, "We have to celebrate this moment!"

Now would be the perfect time to start the real reason Hayate and Naruto came here. The ninja calculated his amendments to the plan and a day taken off the plan when the man would feel unjustly comfortable in his manor after sending the cannon fodder after him would only aid the plan. Naruto bit his thumb and ran it across an invisible seal designed to emit a powerful high pitched sound hidden under a false fingernail. A moment later the one called landed on his shoulder invisible once more.

"Tell Hayate we're having squid tonight." Another heartbeat later the mass on his shoulder was gone again.

"Come on ninja! Let's all get drunk and celebrate the death of that bastard Gato sent after us! The boss is supplying the booze!"

What a surprise that was. It seemed Tazuna was the only man with alcohol in the entire island. The rest of the nation seemed to make do with depression and hope for the bridge being completed. The food stores were bare, the bars were just there gathering dust and the last time he saw a boat it was partly submerged and covered in scorch marks.

Naruto was annoyed at the hypocrisy plaguing this world and half heartedly slapped his palms together. The resulting air current ascended into the air and dissipated the rogue lightning cloud. He would use that annoyance for tonight's festivities.

If anything the mission came first. His views on the world were irrelevant to completing the task at hand.

"Come drink with us!" one of the workers, young with brown hair enthusiastically declared being bold with the way he slapped the ninja in the back. Naruto had to resist his training not to grab and break his arm for doing the friendly gesture without warning him.

"_Oh joy I have to take those foul tasting pills again,"_ Naruto thought darkly, remembering the ton they had to consume at the fire temple to blend in, _"Bring on the mission."_

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He moved in the shadows as if he was part of them. His feet silently touched the branches of trees as he moved through the parched wooden plains surrounding the mountain fortress constructed by Gato. The tyrant's headquarters hugged the only high land on Nami no Kuni and on three sides the gradient made it impossible for even shinobi to climb unseen. Whispered intelligence from a pack of cat spies who had made camp at the base of the mountain which happened to be an extinct volcano informed him of several watch towers using powerful searchlights to illuminate the entire pass. Some of the watchmen were former shinobi crippled or ran out of town as failures by the smaller villages unwilling to feed them and trained to sense chakra.

And then there was the explosives dug into the naked mountain face. Naruto's minions weren't skilled explosive engineers but even they had been trained to look out for space time release mines that trapped you and imploded you into atoms in the same second leaving red smoke to tell anyone you used to exist. The red head was particularly fond of them himself. They were silent and indiscriminate killers but it wasn't like the ninja who had crafted them were going to come back to inspect them.

With that in mind Naruto had only one means of access and that was through the front door. The gully entrance was guarded by a series of drawbridges dug with artificial moats containing electricity tags set to go off if someone disturbed the surface. Again Gato showed his total lack of humanity by rigging them like the seals guarding his mountain walls meaning a lot of small animals and avian life were probably instantly fried for the minions' suppers. After that the cats had been driven out of their hiding place in a rice barrel destined for the kitchens and they had returned to their original positions to patrol the perimeter to make sure his target the executive officer never left the premises.

Hayate had the enviable job of attacking Gato on the open road. The executive officer had to be a paranoid bastard who preferred his fortress filled with hundreds of guards. Naruto was feeling the luck at having to capture his enemy for interrogation.

Naruto was relying on the good old art of stealth to aid him here. He stopped at the side of an empty country lane that was seeing a lot of traffic lately. The dirt road had been re-laid with fresh cement and in the distance, his final destination there was torchlight piercing the blackened void of intensive forests and the sound of horses.

The plan Naruto and Hayate discussed to get the red head past the first line of defence was crude but undeniably effective. He unsealed a small bottle with a powerful smell coming from a rag stuffed into the top from a newly made transferable seal on his elbow. The rag, a small explosive seal used for starting camp fires made his improvised chemical bomb all the more effective by its added properties to spread the forest fire he was about to begin.

Naruto set off the five second fuse and lobbed it into the dense wood directly parallel to him and activated a camouflage technique to become one with the wood.

The bomb exploded, the column of red flame rose up in a mushroom shape and before long the entire left side of the forest was ablaze. A few thrown kunai laden with incendiary paper bombs added fuel to the flames where the etched fuin engraved on the metal projectiles would explode to hide the evidence of foul play and multiply the number of fires.

Naruto waited patiently for the men on horseback to arrive and try to extinguish the red hot orange flames. They were a rag tag party, wearing workers clothing and swords at their waists. The horses were probably stolen and appeared starved showing that even animals weren't enough to make Gato care about anything but his profit margins.

Naruto snared them in a simple genjutsu allowing the grunt workers to think they had seen natives of the islands trying to run away from the scene. As expected their leader, indistinguishable from the other wretches issued some commands to his troops where all but one including the leader charged off after the imaginary targets and to where the cat clan were waiting to ambush them. The lone messenger left behind to update the fortress of the situation was snared into another sleep inducing illusion.

The red hurricane leapt down from his vantage point next to the startled horse. The poor thing was better off dead. Its ribs were poking through its flesh and what used to be a glossy brown coat was reduced to something no better than the rags the beast's rider wore. Naruto didn't want to hurt the poor animal with a genjutsu that was more likely to kill it from the shock and instead made a last minute change to his plan by releasing it. He examined the rider carefully, detailing every feature until he was sure that the blue eyed shinobi could replicate a competent facsimile.

Naruto grabbed the dazed rider, snapped his neck and flung him into the growing fire. With cold hearted ease the ninja walked away without looking back and with a puff of smoke from his transformation jutsu stole the man's form.

The disguised shinobi ran towards the main gate erratically like any would be ambushed civilian. A few subtle alterations to his transformation technique added some stray blood and the guards at the front gate ran up to him.

"Are you alright?" grunt A asked.

Naruto manipulated his guise to hide the hand seals he made to take control of his new comrades. They were instantly enthralled and extremely suggestive thanks to the takeover of their synapses. Under control the group of guards approached him, keeping the guards hanging back in the guard house from seeing the "wounded" rider from paper notes on their bodies that shimmered into the colour of their tunics. A few carefully placed words had the men carry their wounded "comrade" into the guardhouse.

The guardhouse was a simple wooden structure with a table, a bed and chair but little else. They lay Naruto to rest on the bed where the older ninja watched as the bedazzled guardians suddenly saw the untainted watchmen as enemy shinobi and attacked them.

Nobody heard the screams. The seals on his captured people's bodies together produced a powerful silencing field. Any noise was stopped in their tracks by a pulse of continuous chakra disrupting the airwaves to create a sort of vacuum at least for any vibrations travelling through the air.

Once they were done butchering their own allies Naruto drew his kodachi and mopped up the rest of the guards. They would feel no pain. A straight thrust into their hearts downed them in no time.

"That is stage one," Naruto said to himself in a monotone, his eyes darting around the small building. He unrolled a large sheet of paper hidden wrapped round the sheath to his swords and while observing for suitable sites to install his new additions to the building, rubbed his finger along the paper feeling for Braille symbols. Once he located the correct paper his chakra ignited a circuit cutting out perfect paper seals, four in one large strip plus one final note further along from the others and rolled the scroll up and returned it to its hiding place.

Naruto installed the quadruplets at every corner of the room and charged them. They were designed to sustain an illusion that had Naruto using a rudimentary genjutsu designed to hide the chaos the jounin created and snare the people who walked inside. The last one was put on the roof of the door and this was a sensor. If someone with sufficient chakras stepped across the threshold it would go boom with the power of an industrial mining charge loud enough to echo for miles. It was quite possible to deafen anyone within a two mile radius and certainly potent enough to alert Naruto in the short distance he was moving.

Once finished his booby trapping Naruto stole the face of a slaughtered guard and casually walked up to the first drawbridge.

"Now to begin stage two," Naruto sighed. This was moving at an infuriatingly slow pace. That genjutsu on the party of workers back at Tazuna's place was only rigged to remain active for an additional nine hours.

The structure was crafted into the gully stone walls itself. It shone in the torchlight from all the fire retardant paint painted on its black wood surface and the actual gate was barely big enough to admit a wagon. With no guard in sight he happily added another explosive note on the doorframe rigged to blow up just like the one on the door of the guard hut.

Inside intelligence was accurate. There was a gradual winding slope that curved into three blind spots. In these points hidden archer points were stationed and every guard post from here on out had ninja training of some kind. The sheer walls were designed to repulse precise amounts of chakra shinobi used for tree climbing or in this case rock climbing up slopes and every inch of the usually shadowed valley walls were bathed in light from the powerful spotlights.

Naruto could see the castle fortress at the very top. It was a gaudy mansion like structure shaped like a ziggurat disguised to look like part of the mountain with attack dogs from what the cats had heard and a barrier jutsu that shone almost opaque and impervious from standard forms of warfare. You needed an army or a bomb the size of a hidden village to destroy it from the outside. The points of power for the entire system were encompassed and isolated by sections of the barrier in four substations. These small artificial caves powered the barrier by fuin drawing power from what little the poor bastard civilians captured in the neighbouring villages had in their bodies and stuffed inside until the life was sucked right out of them.

The only weakness was yet another drawbridge, the very place his cats were exposed and scattered. There was no more shinobi inside the building at this time which helped but the cats had picked out a lot of feet coming from behind the solid steel door. Apart from that it was totally unknown outside of knowing the target was definitely inside the building.

The ship captain's sudden brutal murder with a harpoon through the eye had seen to that. Naruto never wanted to find out how a feline could throw something that heavy so accurately and without leaving a trace and _without_ making it seem suspicious… Well too suspicious anyway. The entire ship crew apparently had a motive resulting in them all being locked down in the hold and the investigation was going to take days if Gato didn't just cut his losses and execute the whole sorry mob.

"And no weakness to penetrate," Naruto groaned. Well apart from the position of the place where it had been dug into the natural rock to provide a grand carnivorous cave like opening that hid everything that went on in there. By the position of the moon Hayate was soon to be working for the first time on this mission. His little scouting runs were barely daily exercise for a rehabbing ninja but the act had to be maintained. "I'm going to enjoy my week off after this."

Naruto trudged up the steep gradient calmly reaching and passing four checkpoints that only popped up during the night for extra security. His disguise passed muster with three more drawbridge gateways and Naruto was even given the honour of watching electrocuted rats in the watery moats being fished out with plastic hooks as food for the inmates of the prison nearby. There had been no mention of any facilities like that and assumed the chambers used to power the barrier were those places.

Naruto did all this in his usual professional cold as steel attitude he applied to all his duties. On a mission his second personality stirred. It was a mind forged as a necessity from the third shinobi war that slumbered when not in use. The mindset of a killer had driven the tangible insanity, the unrelenting guilt and deep grief, the horrible graphic recollections of war and pain of brothers and sisters killed back with frenzy. The mind suppressed the villages ravaged simply by being built in the middle of a battle zone and Uzushio vanished from his thoughts to be replaced by an all consuming one minded desire to finish his job as efficiently as possible.

The hunter Naruto as rational Naruto liked to call him was the product of a childhood haunted by the early loss of both friend and family. He staved off the insanity and balanced the see saw of mental stability in his mind.

Naruto took an hour to get passed all the checkpoints. His one handed seals inducing genjutsu were his pass codes when work papers were demanded and thankfully his mastery of illusions had no problem snaring these "trained" shinobi like they were mere puppets. He was actually ahead of schedule mentally disappointed about his earlier complaints about the time scale once he arrived at the final door at the very top.

What came to greet him there was a big surprise.

His last guards to bypass were smarter than the rest, earned a listing in the bingo books and not mentioned in the intelligence reports supplied by his feline associates. They were actual fully trained shinobi wearing forest camouflage shirts with light brown coloured jackets on top. They wore Uchiha style large collared black cloaks and had scratched forehead protectors depicting their former allegiance to Kirigakure no Sato that possessed horns or fangs on the top. But what identified them weren't their face masks or their brown spiky hair. On their hands, right and left respectively were large cylindrical metal claws with nine inch talons on each finger.

"Paperwork," one of the infamous demon brothers Meizu or Gōzu asked.

His genjutsu was not guaranteed to get him past these people them both being actual real shinobi and a change of plans were in order. Naruto silently moved into action, reaching into his disguise's imaginary pockets and pulled out several kunai. It was rare for him to use naked kunai and threw them in an ascending pattern up to the nearest window.

"Fuck alert the guards!" one of the brothers shouted. They had no idea Naruto had pulled a fast one and made those simple kunai planned to be used to climb on had fuin designed to dull any sound his feet made. What could he say? The ninja had a lot of time on his hands these past few days. The effect spread for around a hundred feet creating another bubble where sound waves couldn't travel into.

The other demon brother bullishly charged forward weapon first as Naruto ditched his disguise and slashed wildly with his clawed hand. The red head read the telegraphed assault with ease, throwing up an illusion that replicated the bunshin technique creating doppelgangers of him. The attacking man's brother soon joined him unaware his continuous frantic calls for aid were unanswered going after copies that wouldn't fade when touched. Meanwhile Naruto invisible ran past them in one massive burst of raw speed by the two men getting behind them while they engaged the fakes. Naruto inwardly chuckled at the repeat of his earlier strategy against Kiri ninja and chucked four kunai bearing barrier tags. The invisible barrier entrapped them before they were even aware they had been captured.

"I'm over here gentlemen," Naruto deadpanned egging them on with a provoking gesture It was just more of the same cheap chuunin trash. It was getting embarrassing for Gato, the man who hired the worst instead of the best. Couldn't he buy any useful help at all? Were all the good missing ninjas on holiday or something? Couldn't he squeeze some cash from his ill gotten gains to purchase some worthy protection?

The men stopped and charged headfirst into the barrier and were repelled. They had been moving so fast the duo who was working in synch through this had struck the barrier so hard they bounced into the field behind them. They were like pin balls until their momentum slowed down enough for them to lay bedraggled somewhere in the middle dazed and confused.

Naruto spared them just a glance in morbid humour before dislodging one of the kunai and atomising them just like he had done to that Zabuza person. Naruto watched as the chain reaction destroyed the evidence of there ever being any demon brothers and after picking up two of the kunai recharged the seals etched on their metal edges on the other two. Naruto rigged a simple wall barrier invisible to the naked eye to help slow down any help that may come if he were discovered in this next unknown part of the mission.

Naruto then climbed on the kunai climbing frame and arrived at the open window of the next floor. The coldness from the seals detecting motion on the walls also sapped chakra like a starved lion devouring an antelope. He had to wait for the right moment and slipped into a spiralling corridor with nothing but steps.

The corridor was bare and exposed to the elements with only two directions. There was down below with the echoes of drunken men and screaming women or upwards where Naruto could not sense a thing at all. At this point there was absolutely no chakra his sensor skills could pick up. The intelligence was eerily correct. Naruto had had his doubts that Gato would allow his main base to be left unattended by any sort of shinobi backup… What was he missing here?

Anyway Naruto silently climbed the stairs to the very top. Every aperture he came across was used for aesthetic purposes this high up for views of the ocean and moon when it was night. The opulence expected of a sprawling mountain estate was there if you knew what to look for. The occasional sweet smelling scent of scented candles grew more powerful, soft Koto music was drifting lazily downwards guided by the echo naturally created by these hollowed out caves.

The red head reached the very top of the staircase to an open courtyard with an exposed roof. The ninja cautiously ventured inside the inner workings of the building.

"After all the money spent on security," Naruto muttered. The perimeter security system, the barrier jutsu, the complicated and rather over the top traps had mislead him into thinking Gato had both money and _taste_. But seeing the interior of his den the red headed shinobi couldn't conceive anyone having such horrific taste in interior and be rich enough not to have an excuse. "Did he run out and have to skimp on the luxuries?"

The gaudy factor ticked all the right cliché boxes. The upper tier seemed to be offices or some kind of apartment that ranked of rich people with no taste. There were bear skin rugs, antique paintings, gold absolutely everywhere and a roaring fire. The golden chandeliers alone could have probably paid for a small army to come here and destroy Gato and his hold over this increasingly miserable monument to people who had too much money to know what to do with.

Naruto walked across the empty space, examining the items in the room and watching for danger. His ears while not as great as Inuzuka or his cat clan were sharp enough with practice. His danger senses compensated for his redundant chakra senses as there was nothing at all emitting chakra in the inner chamber of the enemy's sanctum.

Hell Naruto was half tempted to strip the place down. There was a standing order at the moment due to the Kyubbi attack badly draining the village coffers to rebuild that if you could steal from an enemy do it. It was just a shame that the barrier shielding this mansion prevented summoning techniques…

His eyes sensing chakras noticed a spike just under a nearby alcove. Naruto passed a dodgy painting of a eunuch cavorting with a priestess and hugged the wall when voices could be heard.

"Are you sure about this report?"

"Yes my lord," a brownnoser declared with a hiccup, "Gato-sama has definitely been killed."

"_Well just damn,"_ Naruto thought, _"He jumped the gun a little didn't he?"_But what would spook a professional assassin to speed up his schedule? Naruto had once tried to spook Hayate while the man was wearing ear muffs and the man didn't even blink when Naruto snuck up from behind. It made Naruto worry nonetheless with possibilities that proved unsettling.

Naruto decided to speed up his own plans and listened closely to the oncoming footsteps and tried to pick out the direction of the voices. With Gato dead there could only be one person called lord and that was to be his target.

"Do you know by whom yet?"

"That is just it sir," the man said sounding afraid, "There are claims both Kirigakure and Konohagakure were involved and…"

Naruto slowed his heartbeat; his breathing slowed and with a powerful surge of chakra rolled around the corner, drawing his kodachi just in time to see the humungous bodyguard of Tetsu no Kuni samurai silently marching in line around the two people.

"_I should've used my genjutsu first,"_ Naruto thought, kicking himself for getting complacent and cocky. Of course there had to be some muscle this high up. But what were the chances of anyone using samurai as bodyguards? The same people who wore chakra absorbing armour to render their signatures all but impossible to detect?

"Who are you!" an older gent with a greying beard and wearing the finest clothes money could buy. He also happened to be his target. The milksop beside him was a young wimp with glasses and a shiver that could get him work as a pneumatic drill if he wanted to. "Samurai attack him!"

The men obeyed, drawing both of their distinctive swords and sweeping towards him in formation. They wore armour with no regalia proving they were renegades but that didn't matter to Naruto at this point in time.

Naruto weaved a few hand seals, inhaled and then exhaled a powerful cyclone of wind at his enemy. The chakra using soldiers held their ground, sticking to the floor and using their heavy armour to support their grounding on the rich carpeted floors. One fool, a young one as it tended to be lost his grip and helplessly bounced off a smarter comrade when the young man tried to stick to a rug. The youngster nearly hit his target until a bear like male, taller than the rest and built like a mighty oak tree grabbed him like the younger one was a flea and threw him out of a nearby window with a snort that made his handlebar moustache even that bit more ridiculous.

If Naruto was a normal man he would have been intimidated by the casual show of power but the red head knew how to deal with samurai. It came with the turf of being a bomber and a saboteur that he had dealt with samurai of all shapes and sizes. Not from Tetsu no Kuni specifically where they took the piss out of embodying shinobi training with samurai techniques but they still were essentially the same.

Naruto whacked them a genjutsu making them think they were still under the influence of the powerful gusty wind, ran up the wall drawing his kodachi and landed in the centre of their lines next to his target. Both blades gleamed silvery in the candlelight and heads rolled. As those bodies came to fall, wind chakra extended on the tips of the blades to increase their width and a powerful hurricane of sharpened wind blades chewed up and swallowed then spat out another number of the tightly packed guards.

But there were two people with some brains or luck take your pick. The nerd had hit the deck prior to the genjutsu activating and was busy soiling himself and the tough old samurai had dispelled the genjutsu and was awakening some of the few that had escaped the free body modification. Naruto's prey had been spared on principle and only the red head's powerful command of the wind had prevented the man from mastering his sliced sashimi impression. Instead the older samurai had snatched the frightened male and pulled him into a wall of armoured bodies.

"You can't get to him now Konoha shinobi," the old soldier boldly stated, getting into stance with both swords curved over the other to make a scissor shape. To a samurai this man would be formidable but to a sneaky red head the outcome was already certain. There were few shinobi who epitomised stealth. While most relied on flashy ninjutsu that anyone with enough basic chakras control and chakra reserves could manage Naruto had managed to keep a long career of blowing shit up hidden by his sheer talent in the field of genjutsu.

Naruto dropped his swords with a clang. If the man was expecting the usual flashy fire breathing hooligan with no finesse boy was the old guy in for a treat.

He was no Yuuhi Kurenai, his best friend who preferred the flashy and overdramatic genjutsu Konoha had to offer generating multiple fixtures of illusions at once to end with a simple kunai strike nor was he clinical Inuzuka Rin who used it to get the job done while her delicate chakra scalpels slashed the enemy's trachea. Naruto was in a league of his own who had mastered flair and subtlety plus whatever the sacred scroll of sealing could throw at him.

To this end Naruto rarely used hand seals openly but this was the beauty of this genjutsu. By employing the tiger seal first the samurai expected the extremely common fire jutsu native to Konoha and predicatively moved to protect their client.

Instead they were swallowed by a pit of utter darkness. They would see, hear, taste, feel and hear nothing in this unforgiving void of nothingness created by the Nidaime Hokage, something dubbed a kinjutsu for the sheer impossibility some felt in shattering it before your opponent killed you and one of the few genjutsu in the world with ten layers woven in from the start. While most genjutsu were applied in layers there were fewer as you went up the scale of difficulty that automatically resulted in multiple weaves of chakra done all at once.

"What are you doing this for?" the milksop spoke. Naruto snarled at forgetting that his new genjutsu needed a general direction to use and generally dispelled any other genjutsu currently active from the abnormal power transferred compared to other genjutsu arts that relied on precise chakra control. It was also rare for an illusion that it ate at your chakras a lot more than most others.

"I'm busy," Naruto dismissed, picking up a sword. "Shut up." He threw the blade, throwing it into the air until it caught the man by the throat and pinned him against the wall. His frightened face was an ironic death mask but Naruto barely gave it a second look and went back to the writhing men on the floor.

The once proud moustached gentleman had his eyes bulging as the darkness refused to be dispelled. Naruto was a bit more generous to this adversary sparing him a glance methodically slashing his throat and then finished off the other survivors the very same way.

The red head watched for other people coming and relaxed when nothing reached his ears. He took the time to examine the target, watching the yellow stain on his fancy trousers with a rare showing of amusement. Naruto took out a seal tag and slapped it across his mouth. An additional tag was slapped on each of his joints and one more over the old man's heart. The ninja touched the old man's forehead and dispelled the genjutsu.

"Make one noise and I blow you up to ashes," Naruto warned cheerily. The executive officer froze halfway through trying to pull the tag off his mouth and nodded dumbly. Then he lost the power in his legs after seeing all the bodies around him. Naruto snorted at the coward, sheathed his swords, making a point to squelch the blade out of the leader's assistant's throat to further the hopelessness of his situation. "Now is there another way out of this place?"

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Naruto and his new prisoner slipped out of the small cave exit with ease. The convenient hollowed out secret tunnel through the top of the fortress to the bottom near to an empty wood made his trip outside all that much easier. His prize had been cooperative enough, not resisting but those eyes were scheming potential ways out of this. Maybe Naruto would be bribed? It wouldn't be the first time they attempted it and he snorted at the old chestnut of businessmen who knew they were boned. His loyalty would cost a country's treasury to pay off.

Naruto examined the cave entrance, intrigued by the disrupted genjutsu hiding the mouth and let his eyes see the explosive notes laden in the tunnel glimmer malevolently with red Kyubbi chakra. It was one of his more impulsive ideas while watching Konohamaru learn how to use the chakra of the fox one day under the watch of the entire fuin squad, oba-san and Jiraiya. He on a whim collected the remnants of red chakra slowly decaying the grass around the kid and integrated them into his explosive notes. Sometimes it paid to sow confusion among the ranks of countries when Konoha required the nation being damaged to be confused.

And what worked better than leaving traces of a bijuu? There was no confirmation of this of course but both the Iwa Jinchuuriki and one of the Kiri ones had defected and gone on the run. Naruto could only imagine what this would do to relations between Kiri and Nami if Naruto leaked out that little fact with Tazuna with all those riches they could have gained to help resuscitate their economy.

Tsunade-sama was going to owe him big for using these tags. They were bloody hard to make, the chakra needed was in short supply since Kono was a little hesitant to train in his tenant's power and the siphoning seals allowing absorption seals to transfer energy from one focus to another were next to impossible without getting the blood from both parties. That meant both scared of blood until he was ten Konohamaru and Naruto the less than patient uncle had some interesting conversations/negotiations when the older ninja wanted some life blood.

Naruto activated the detonators with a pulse of his own chakra and escaped knowing the chakra wires linking each charge would run up the height of the escape tunnel and blow up everything from the inside. The executive officer was dragged boneless through the forest just before the explosion rumbled through the land.

He would just see before disappearing into the shadow of the night the fall of a mighty mountain forever altered by the actions of one man.

The trip to Tazuna's house took very little time at all through the main streets. A simple cloaking genjutsu stopped anyone who had come out to investigate the source of the massive bang from seeing him on their rooftops. The clamour of voices suddenly murmuring then gasping before speculating with their neighbours on what the smoke cloud spewing ash into the air was all about hid his less than stealthy movements on their rooftops until Naruto had arrived at the house in question.

The occupants of the house were still asleep inside in the lonely house and it was still dark, the stars providing the only source of illumination. Naruto dropped the body of his prey with a complaining grunt and snapped his fingers. Kuroneko appeared from out of nowhere spooking the old man with its spiked tail dangling around his jugular though the jounin had heard the man scrambling to his feet as if to try and escape.

"Oyabun," the cat greeted respectfully, "We bring bad news."

Naruto didn't show it but the man was perturbed. Hadn't Hayate killed Gato? That had been what those men had been speaking about in the mansion. Hayate or someone from Kirigakure no Sato…

"What happened?" Naruto snapped. The conclusions he was coming to was not boding well. That one factor he had written off was coming back to bite them on the ass. Why hadn't he demanded they tell him what Terumi Mei was doing in the area? His stupid anger had clouded his reasoning. Damn this entire mission Naruto had had his head floating in the clouds and his mind stuck in the past.

"Team Delta observed Hayate-san intercepting the target and his convoy of guardians but was beaten back by a woman with red hair. We tried to aid him but another kunoichi with senbon drove the observation team back and when I personally managed to slip past I found your associate oyabun or well what was left of him before the lava enveloped him sir." The cat wailed and a fast moving object shimmered, dropped a half melted sword he knew very well and then vanished again. "All we could retrieve was the sword but the target had been eliminated along with his personnel."

Naruto tentatively picked up the melted weapon, his gloved hands felt warm as the heated metal still carried the heat from that witch's foul power. Naruto's eyes welled with tears as the echoes of old memories of what this sword represented to his friend but they were bitten back by the warrior within him. The shaking desisted, yanking, shaking his body and his anger swallowed by cold rationality. He threw away his personal feelings, stalked up to the executive officer radiating killer intent and removed the covering over his mouth.

"Kuroneko collect all the data every team has gathered and retrieve anything you can of the situation. Try and track down the enemy who eliminated Hayate-san the best you can. I have to prepare our new friend for Ibiki-san."

"Of course oyabun," Kuroneko agreed with a short bow with his eyes closed. The cat was there one moment then in another the darkness had swallowed him whole.

"Now," Naruto declared, his red hair matching his ferocity, "Let's get you ready for Ibiki-san to interrogate and have you confessing your guts for us." His face mask was pulled down and his pearly whites were bared like a wild beast.

"You can't do this!" the man complained pitifully, "The fire lord will have your…" Naruto had heard enough and activated the seal paper on the man's heart. The spasm induced had the old guy screaming into the empty night. It was just a shame the nearest coherent person was loudly distracted by the destroyed gully fortress.

"My mistake," Naruto said off hand, walking past the man and slapping four paper tags on the ground to make a large rectangle, "Forgot the silencing barrier." The powerful shield shot up and turned the wide open field into an interrogation room. "Now where was I?" Naruto said coldly. "Ah yes I was softening you up wasn't I?"

At least there was something to vent his anger on.

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A/N There is chapter four. Um review please as I am not really feeling the love here people and constructive reviews please and flames… Try not to but it's a free country well mine is anyway lol

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	5. It Not Only Rain It Pours

Naruto: My Way

The Red Hurricane Of Konoha

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 5: It Not Only Rain It Pours

Disclaimer: In tribute to the mighty Uchiha clan I am issuing a new disclaimer which is this. If I owned Naruto I would have made it so Madara didn't take the piss with the super powers. Hey I'm bored I know I'll give myself the rinnegan!-Point taken no?

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Naruto soared through the densely populated forest with ease honed from years of practice. His knowledge of where specific species of trees were located made him go in a jagged straight line. He crisscrossed the optimum path from Nami no Kuni right through to the heartland of Konohagakure, earning a blurry tour of the various important landmarks of the fire nation including the valley of the end even passing within the fringes of Takigakure no Sato's territory where his friend Shibuki, an old war ally was leader of the hidden village. While moving his path had been one followed doggedly with an in-depth retrospective of the mission and how it had failed.

Gekko Hayate was now in the kingdom of the gods. All that was left of his corpse according to the cat squad stalking the swordsman's every move was the blade wrapped in velvet provided by the opiate addict Tsunami as a show of respect. Despite the potential for political backfiring the cold implications Naruto had whispered into Tazuna's ear promised vengeance and a trade treaty with Konoha along with a military pact if the drunken bridge builder had anything to say about it. The newborn elderly hero had rallied the entire island to finish the bridge within a day once word came Gato was dead and the executive officer was missing presumed deceased.

To remove some of the sting from the compromised mission that old fart had squealed like a soprano about everything the Gato group had done. The revels, the drug manufacturing and subsequent smuggling and the slavery had just been the tip of the iceberg. They had apparently organised the largest paedophile network in this part of the elemental nations, bribed several high ranking fire nation court officials offering names, ranks and addresses in some cases when Naruto had felt especially aggrieved like when shinobi killed had been described. Some had been people the jounin had known that had vanished in the name of their duties while on missions from tip offs those so called men of justice had issued.

The battered and beaten man who went by the name ironically enough of Kaiza, a man who enjoyed afternoon tea while treating ten year old boys as footstools or ashtrays had confessed all. His urges for children, the sexual disease that ravaged his sex drive hell his mother's retirement home address was now in the hands of the evil devil Morino Ibiki, or to anyone with an ounce of sense the one man you didn't want to cross _ever_.

Ibiki-san had held out from leaking information when captured to the point his head had been turned into more skull than flesh and not one single word had passed his lips. He had sharpened the teeth of many would be interrogator and took no prisoners creating the premier facility in getting information out of even the hardest of nuts. And the poor executive officer had to endure the full treatment with carte blanche clearance from the Hokage keen to make the little squeaker tell them everything Naruto might have missed in front of the daimyo.

But now Naruto had nothing to dull his thoughts or feelings. It had been a long time since a comrade had died needlessly, with nobody to see it. The war had ended long ago when a man died anonymously on the field of battle where he lay. Even though Naruto's warrior heart had stolen the ability to cry long before now but that agonising pricking feeling knowing Hayate had died fighting that witch…

His oba-san was going to be busy tonight talking it over with her nephew. Her invaluable nurturing had guided the closest thing she would ever have unless she remarried to a child through thick and thin passing her knowledge onto his nephew or brother... Naruto was unclear on how to see Konohamaru but the new genin was going to grow up with one excellent listener for a guardian. With sake in hand and a kind smile Naruto and Uzumaki Kushina would be chatting about this until the red haired jounin had come to terms with the senseless way the powerful and artful assassin had been murdered.

According to the report the cats had listed to him Hayate had apparently been melted by a lava stream when they found the body after returning to the scene. Hayate Gekko's sword technique while original, weaving shadow clones to make a miniature synchronised army deploying rapid and deadly moves only commanded him the rank of a Tokubetsu jounin. An assassin which was his primary job title was worthless if there was no ambush or surprise involved. Naruto could grudgingly affirm from his own encounter with Terumi Mei had been one where their full skills had been on display and as hard as it was to admit it the woman would have easily overpowered the swordsman.

Hell if Naruto was not a bit smarter and technical plus being completely unorthodox in terms of what a typical ninja usually knew he could be the dead one at the moment. The scarlet witch was graceful, flowing and powerful. She read right through his illusions and hit him as hard as the red headed male had fought her. The environment she could create suggested a tactical mind, her rapid formation of hand seals told of hard practice and study and her ability to aggravate her fellow Uzushio survivor…

That whole mission stank of an omen of failure on first contact with the enemy. Nobody was supposed to be aware of a black operation mingled with a straightforward mission. It had taken a suggestion imposed by a genjutsu and the timely return of the brat Inari whom the events of the past few days in his head was "modified" in the dead of night to rectify the blunder when everyone was awoken from their chakra induced slumber. Now the official line was Hayate was recalled due to his health deteriorating and Inari had greeted him sullenly in passing.

But god damn did that anticlimactic exit fan the flames that made Naruto despise that woman. The descendant of a clan of deserters who only belonged in the foulest pits of hell with their flesh chewed to the bone by hungry devils. The foul red haired liars and traitors had only a single purpose in life.

They only had to die. If she or anyone in her clan approached him again they were dead and he would happily put aside his beliefs and ravage the corpses to make sure no sick fuckers like Orochimaru could somehow revive their cursed bloodlines. There was no precedence for a blood feud in the strict Konoha universal clan laws but that wouldn't stop him.

His thoughts of this matter were disrupted by a chakra signature flowing in from above him. Naruto stopped maybe ten kilometres from Konoha as the crow flies, leapt to the top of the shadowy trees and bathed in the gorgeous sunlight that had been his only companion most of the way home. The trip back to headquarters had taken barely four hours at top speed and the ache in his knees was so worth the burn. His clothes were sticking to his body and strands of hair had to be brushed away.

"How can I help team ten today Genma?"

A fast moving blur followed by three slower enough for their physical appearances to be seen in high speed movement presences landed in a perfect enveloping circle. It was an odd choice of formation to greet an ally but Naruto rolled with it. It wasn't like you could fake chakra signatures or make genin into gods in a matter of days.

Genma looked sheepish scratching the back of his head with his hand while chewing his senbon. His team, a round Akimitchi with swirls on each cheek, a lazy Nara and a flirty Yamanaka who was making cow eyes at her sensei which was hilarious as hell. And Naruto would have laughed if Hayate hadn't just perished the day before.

"We well _I_ just spotted your movement in the trees and I figured I would introduce you to my team and…" His confused look at him was soon followed by after a half second of hesitation, "Where is Hayate?"

"He was killed in the course of the mission." Naruto said this rather flatly.

"Can you tell me how he was killed?" Genma asked curiously hiding very well his own inner turmoil. Hayate and Genma had been close friends for years and the details would be spilled sooner or later. The secrecy laws only applied if they caught you but it was etiquette that it was alright to speak of missions but only in private.

"The mission rank prevents me from saying anymore." Translation: genin were in earshot of their conversation. "And what about you Genma and your team? Is this your first C rank mission?"

The entire genin squad had lost all their youthful enthusiasm. That had happened to him the first time a jounin talked about the death of a comrade like one would talk about the weather. But that was how he was trained before peace took over and shinobi were taught differently outside of a war time mandate. The dead couldn't be brought back and dwelling on it reduced your ability to work. You ran the risk of slowly driving yourself insane with past regrets.

"Yeah," Genma confirmed, showing a concerned look on his face veiled from obvious sight by his hair. It was a credit to his training that his tone didn't betray him. "We had to escort a sacred sake barrel to the north edge of Konoha."

"For the festival they hold in the mountains?" Naruto enquired, knowing it was around this time of year. "Did you get a chance to watch the priestess dance from Oni no Kuni?"

Genma chewed his needle; twirling impaling it into his tongue to allow the paralysis drug he was near immune to numb the appendage. It was a habit his friend had picked up in the war when he was holding back his emotions.

"We didn't have time," the blonde girl chirped in, regaining her bright smile and naive expression. She had her arms behind her back, something Taira-sensei would have made the two jounin do four hundred squats for leaving her front open and her balance compromised. She was a pretty young thing, bright with a purple dress and wraps along with her forehead protector fashioned into a belt buckle. "I'm sorry to hear about your partner shinobi-san."

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto and thank you for your concern Yamanaka-san," Naruto said evenly. The sly Nara, yawning like the day was about to end was like his father with those calculating eyes. The Akimitchi was still as white as a sheet from the blunt comment about dead people but there was potential. Slap on a suit of shinobi armour and hand the kid a staff his chakra senses might have mistaken the kid for his old man in his younger days. "Hayate died doing his duties as a proud shinobi of Konoha."

"My father has spoken about you," the Nara genin said, "He called you the Konoha no Aka Tatsumaki," he added perhaps hoping Naruto would elaborate.

"I fought alongside all your fathers," Naruto stated without really answering the smart boy's attempt to get the red head jounin to divulge, "A fine group of warriors who were perfect in teamwork and precision. I hope you live up to their vision and I believe you shall if your parents aren't exaggerating about your talents." The group of genin beamed at the throwaway praise. Well two of them anyway the dour and almost emo expression on the Nara turning the mental gears on what was being said underneath the underneath was again just like his old man. It normally was simple to motivate genin with praise from a senpai. "But I can't stand around all day chatting. I must return and report the mission I have just returned from."

"We will escort you," Genma offered with a shrug. He had one eye open trying to look relaxed but his clenched hand and the blood trickling from the puncture on his tongue meant demanding answers was on his to do list. "Team ten lead the way and Naruto and I will follow close behind."

"Yes sensei," all three of them chirped, making an arrowhead formation with the Nara in the front and took off at a brisk pace through the trees.

"We will talk as we move," Genma itinerated, matching course and speed with his friend taking the lead. "But keep out of range of the Nara and talk with your mask only. The boy can lip read and I don't want his curiosity squashed just yet nor do I want to have a genin walking around with information that could have him executed for treason."

And it was during that journey, that straight line trip to avoid tiring out the fresh genin from where they were to the gates of Konoha that the first telling of the story was recited. It was all based on second hand accounts of the situation and the actual battle itself was unknown to anyone but the woman who had slain their friend in battle but the sporadic detail was all in likelihood a blessing. Knowing little about it all the human psyche could fill in the blanks imagining their friend as someone who fought to the last breath.

Naruto did this in painstakingly detail. What little raw information was available was made for the man to interpret as he wished. Genma listened intently, asked the appropriate questions when something needed clarified but it was amazing how a ten minute report was lengthened for nearly the entire hour trip back to Konoha.

"I will take the sword to his wife," Genma promised, "You swing by my place and we can go drinking to honour the guy. We will round up everyone from the old gang and toast him to the afterlife."

"You better let me show it to the morgue to confirm his death," Naruto said, "But by all means you can hand it to Yuugao-san. I was dreading doing it myself."

The genin team landed in the narrow forest road leading to the south gate. As they did this they were briefly tagged by the village barrier just as procedure dictated. Their names, chakra signatures and everything else was stored in the database and the shinobi who were in charge had memorised each and every signature belonging to Konoha from touching the chakra field conducted into their I.D. cards upon being enlisted in their army.

While they charged forward in the typical arrow stance running all ninja were famed for the more skilled shinobi Naruto who was using the wind to create a vacuum expelling chakra at a level barely noticed to the red head with perfect chakra control dropped down to the dusty ground and charged in. With their slightly slower sensei Genma who was relying on his superior physical condition following behind and using his friend as a windbreaker they too passed through the barrier before with two giant bursts off speed they caught up to their kohai just as they were approaching the main gate.

Two chuunin were waiting to greet him as the main gate. Once long ago the idea of gate duty was seen as a horrible punishment that Naruto and Genma had endured once on request from their old sensei until these two jokers were assigned here after some mission that went horribly wrong. They were now rarely employed in the field which was a shame. They had teamwork that few could equal. They both wore the standard uniform with their differences, Izumo Kamizuki with his hair in front of his eyes and Kotetsu Hagane with a bandage on his nose.

"Excuse Uzumaki-san," Kotetsu greeted, "We have a message from Hokage-sama for you." The man was handed a sealed scroll from his partner with a red stamp marked "urgent". "It reads please report to situation room alpha as soon as you arrive. Please deploy a cat to issue your report about your last mission and the reasons why Gekko Hayate-san is not with you to chuunin Umino Iruka. This is a situation red. That is all."

Naruto didn't even say anything to them in turn. That situation room was only used for missions that dealt with the very existence of the village itself. The room basically was a war room. You know when a war had begun. Genma looked at him with concern before nodding to show he understood about the change in plans and tilted his head as if to tell him to get a move on while chewing his senbon. The red head summoned his feline companion, brunette female with a white tipped tail and issued the orders required plus handed over the sword he had been keeping close to his heart.

Then Naruto with his aching body, sweaty and uncouth appearance who really needed a bath, a hot meal and some sleep put away his worldly concerns in the name of his village and vanished with a powerful flash of yellow light up onto a nearby rooftop.

He leapt several streets at a time, employing a sort of spring learned from his time with his felines. They had hypnotised him long ago that every human neko summoner landed on his feet, moved with unnatural grace and instinct. His feet knew the surfaces he landed on were strong or not. His ability to momentarily redistribute his weight to avoid immediate collapse of a surface allowed him to take a route through the old town with roofs prone to collapsing that most other ninjas just avoided and ran around or used the narrow alleyways. It made his momentary side trip across narrow alleyways possible thanks to his invisible "whiskers" a sort of hyper awareness allowing him to judge spaces without stopping whether or not it was possible to avoid having to go through the ANBU sector which would no doubt be on high alert if that situation room was being used. Shimura Danzo had really upgraded the standard security detail since his ascension to head of ROOT.

It was barely in the blink of an eye squeezing into the minor spaces at one busy street between individual citizens before another powerful shunshin had him just outside of the Hokage tower. In the name of the current emergency he climbed the Hokage tower wall, discharging a charge of raw energy for the sensor seals reset to admit anyone authorised to climb the wall.

Naruto ran up two floors silently until the red head came to a stop at a seemingly part of solid wall where he swiftly flipped his body back, his feet still sticking to the wall where his hands passed through a seemingly solid piece of wall and threw himself gracefully into a concealed window and into the situation room.

Naruto always hated entering this room. Be it with Minato Namikaze discussing battle tactics during the war and the three times in his brief tenure when the fate of the village had been threatened by a foreign power and the day the Kyubbi incident occurred. Tsunade had brought him here too once before when she mobilised a team of thirty jounin to intercept a messenger from Sunagakure who had stolen the defence specs of the entire village.

It wasn't a room that carried any obvious sense of importance to it. It had cream coloured walls, a heavy ancient wooden table made by the Shodaime and a bare wooden floor. What could be seen to construe its worth above another meaningless meeting room was the map of the elemental nations on the wall and the file cabinet sealed by the most elaborate trap system ever built that rivalled his designs. But what lay underneath was what gave it the name of a bunker despite being several flights of stairs up. It operated on the principle that impregnable was its core value. The walls were the thickest in the building and designed to resist practically damn near anything. All five Hokage worthy ninja had included fuin designs from the ages including structural support seals by the first two, the third applying the relatively recently discovered floatation fuin allowing it to "float" and act as an anchor for the rest of the tower for nearly up to a year if the foundations or any lower level had been compromised. But it was the last two like the more esoteric aspects from the Yondaime neutralising pretty much every elemental jutsu type and scattering space time techniques like the hiraishin to Tsunade so far commissioned the fuin squad led by his aunt to reapply or repair the fuin left by her predecessors.

Naruto was alone when he entered the room but was aware the door he had used to enter contained a pressure alarm and alerted the Hokage, ANBU and the chief of the police force someone had entered.

The red head took the time made by the intermission to regulate his breathing from his trip and regain his composure as best as he could. It was not worth his career to employ chakra in this room and try to dry out with his wind chakra. He meditated standing up, organising his feelings and gradually wearing them down like the tide on a stone until the professional was back in charge.

Naruto had another high ranked mission coming up. He could ill afford to allow anything to manipulate him again. That tiredness was just going to have to wait. He was going to have to celebrate the life of Gekko Hayate with his friends later on and the seething hatred towards that red haired bitch for now had to stand aside.

Finally one of the walls glowed as a rectangular shape formed and a shimmering genjutsu flickered revealing the door outside and his Hokage. She stepped in, her face grim as she held a scroll. She said nothing until she slammed it giving it a glare that could set it on fire if she could do it.

"I know you are tired Naruto but this is of the utmost importance so please say nothing until I give you permission." Tsunade began to pace the breadth of the table back and forth exuding her aura of wariness and hesitance. She was not a woman to bear this openly to anyone and Naruto was both honoured and humbled that the woman allowed herself to show her true feelings to a subordinate. "Yesterday morning on our border with Ame our outpost there reported they were under attack by Ame ninja led by Hanzo the Salamander." She let that sink in and damn it hit him. After all these years Hanzo was on the offence against Konoha? His actions despite being the leader of a minor nation could trigger a shinobi war between the great five nations. "Our last contact with them described a large force perhaps numbering in the hundreds massing on the border moving with intentions most likely to invade and retake the monsoon valley. They have most likely left nothing standing and the daimyo this morning issued the order for us to mobilise an attack force to repel them. Daimyo-sama wants it small and…" Tsunade looked away, "And has asked Takigakure and Kumogakure for assistance."

That bore some intrigue. While Takigakure were a long-time ally it hadn't been that long since Kumo and Konoha had been trying to wipe the other from the face of the world. But why were Kumo, a village with a rather shaky truce with Konoha agreeing to work together? Konoha was more than capable of retaking the monsoon valley without help. The rain nation army was nothing to the legends that resided here. Unless…

"They are attacking from both sides of the border," Naruto interrupted knowing he was not allowed to speak. His analytical knowledge was coveted by the Hokage and she seemed unwilling to scold him for disobeying protocol. Frankly she seemed pleased the red head she often took advice from despite the age gap in experience was willing to finish for her. "This means that if Ame retake the monsoon valley, a strategic point for our forces on scouting missions to surrounding neutral nations and the black caves, the most important observation point on their border with Kumo the other nations will pile in and assault any of our nearby allies that rely on us to defend them."

Kami this was quite the cluster fuck. And Naruto hated being right. His Hokage had said nothing and only seemed to age before his eyes. Her genjutsu remained strong but her eyes dulling, her stance and damn near everything else she couldn't shroud in chakra was sagging before him.

"And your mission is to rout the entire army. You are to attack them head on and wipe out as many of the enemy as you can while we organise a task force to permanently police the zone. Our allies are already aware of the battle plans and you will be under Jiraiya for this."

"Who did they send from Takigakure?" Naruto asked wondering if Shibuki was going mad for sending a presence when his nation was in dire financial straits. It was understandable though. The gentle man had to decide if he needed to arm his nation for another large scale war. If they didn't nip this blossoming conflict in the bud before both Kumo and Konoha could establish a cemented presence on their regions war was guaranteed to break out. The worst scenario was the Ame ninja claiming both territories again and digging in as they were skilled at doing.

Tsunade pressed a button hidden under the table and using the latest in wireless communications another door this time leading to a set of stairs was activated but unlike the genjutsu the air hissed as the stone was slid aside being part of the original building. That single door was capable of blocking a type five explosive kunai mine used to booby trap battlefields. He should know the red head had created it along with his aunt.

What entered the room had Naruto immediately on edge. His fingers unconsciously stroked the sheath of his beautiful swords while he concealed his other hand ready to command genjutsu.

She was not much older than he was. She had flowing blonde hair, tied into a ponytail with tape usually used on the flesh. The woman bore her Kumo forehead protector with pride matching it with a confident stance that hadn't shifted upon clasping eyes on her old rival.

The woman who wore a grey armoured vest, black skin tight pants and prayer beads around a taped up arm was named Nii Yugito or the third Jinchuuriki of the Nibi no Nekomata. They had faced each other on the battlefield numerous times and each time the Konoha No Aka Tatsumaki had defeated her. Though the woman was older by four years Naruto had trounced her in several key battles. An Uzushio born shinobi had no fear of a demon wielding ninja. Each time they had engaged each other Naruto had forced her to the brink and transform when her anger reached boiling point and then moments later no matter how agile she was Naruto had locked her fuin down to render her harmless. The shock of forcibly having the demon ejected from her tenketsu forced her allies to retrieve her prone form.

Not that the damn woman hadn't sent hell literally at him every time. Sometimes when it was cold his regenerated flesh from third degree burns she had given him drove him crazy like a hive of insects were crawling all over him like an eternal reminder. And by now the woman had to have done what the Hachibi was capable of and took the reins fully over her tailed beast meaning enraging her to seal her was not going to work anymore.

And her jealousy of him possessing the feline summoning contract was legendary. Her spike of killing intent unconsciously transmitted gave the professional shinobi part of him the ability to finally put aside the last part of his final mission to smirk at her which was not well received.

And behind her was a person that had done the opposite and had in one time engaging each other had driven the red hurricane from the battlefield after leading the reinforcements after a slog of a campaign. Naruto had to do a pretty damn amazing Kami impression to at least cover his allies retreat before the black lightning of this person sent him fleeing from the field.

His name was Darui a snowy white haired man contrasted to his extremely dark skin. He bore his familiar katana, its hilt as pure as his wild hair that somehow managed to resemble a hedgehog in the foetal position. His vest reflected further the albino coloured vest that clipped around one shoulder exposing his black vest that Naruto knew from intelligence to have a device that he had used as a child to practice his infamous ranton jutsu.

The pair shared a look. Darui blinked and sharply nodded while Naruto looked him over as if judging his new ally before a hiss from Yugito broke the silent provocation.

"Hurry up Samui," Darui drawled. "Your caution is unwarranted. Takigakure are of no consequence to us."

With that a final woman walked into the room and was the second of the three Nii siblings even if Yugito was adopted into their clan. She had blonde hair like her sister but was cut to frame her face to dangle just shy of touching her neck. She held her katana around her back like Naruto like just ready to unsheathe with both hands emphasising her obvious charms. She looked bored but the extremely busty woman was anything but. Her placidity that she tried to disguise by her provocative clothing, a one piece robe that barely managed to cover her panties with matching obi did not distract the professional. She was a pretty good actress but leaned on her beautiful body too much. She had tension going through the roof and Naruto bet if he dropped one of his old firecrackers the blonde known as Nii Samui who was never really seen without her twin brother Atsui would have tried to chop off his head.

This was his first meeting with this Kumo kunoichi. She and her brother had been guarding the homeland for most of the war with the Hachibi container.

"This is the Kumo delegation joining you and Jiraiya on your mission," Tsunade introduced, "This is Darui, Nii Samui and…"

"Hokage-sama," Naruto interrupted, "I don't think you need to introduce me to Nii Yugito. I am surprised they let us near their Jinchuuriki. Does their Raikage know I am to be on this mission?"

Tsunade sighed but maintained her front of control. The two villages had been warring with each other not so long ago and had tried to kidnap the Hyuuga heir. Naruto was just doing as he was trained to do. They weren't diplomats filled with platitudes and false sincerity.

"For this mission I had to send a full list of all the ninja I was going to deploy and I didn't miss your name Naruto."

"For this mission we are allies," Darui tried to intercede but the killing intent of his Jinchuuriki was rising gradually. "That is enough already Yugito." The intent was lowered but still prevalent like an itch you couldn't reach. "I apologise for this Hokage-sama."

"From what I have read from old mission reports it isn't surprising," Tsunade said as if the matter wasn't important that Yugito seemed to be keeping score and her jounin was dangling it at the feline Jinchuuriki like a piece of string. "No apology is needed."

"Naruto-nii!" squealed a rather unexpected voice breaking the atmosphere. What was Shibuki pulling allowing her to come here? His only real weapon apart from Suien who if the leadership of the village wasn't hereditary the man would have been leader of Taki.

"Calm yourself Fu," the commanding voice of the man he had just been musing about drifted from the top of the clanking stone steps. Wow Shibuki was really offering his best for this task.

"Sorry Suien-sensei," the girl apologised.

The owner of the loud footsteps belonged to a green haired girl. She was this time not that much older than Konohamaru, not much taller either and already an undisputed master of her bijuu to rival the Hachibi. During the war her presence had been purely defensive until Naruto and his company of jounin alongside Shibuki had rushed to its aide during a last ditch effort from Kumo to get something positive out of the war. This tiny girl clad in a white top cut just below her armpits that she kept in place with a fishnet shirt down to her stomach and white skirt…well a smock that luckily came with a thick fishnet skirt down to her knees was deceptive in her power. She wielded damn near nothing in terms of weaponry but she was skilled. Shibuki and mostly Suien had seen to that.

That bright smile came from Naruto at the end of the conflict adjusting the fuin now permanently exposed on her navel to perfection. So now the younger girl with orange eyes and a childish hair clip the Konoha jounin had given her years ago considered him family.

The older man that followed was straight forward professional like Naruto. His brown hair while wild was kept in place with a bandana. This theme of control continued with his smartly trimmed beard and grey jumpsuit. A large belt was wrapped over his front containing his equipment.

"Good morning Fu-chan," Naruto greeted. He accepted the girl's very enthusiastic greeting reminding him of Konohamaru. Fu practically tackled his ribs and smiled up at him.

"Good morning Naruto-nii, my brother told me to say hello and sorry he couldn't make it himself."

"He is leader now I understand Fu-chan," Naruto said indulgently. Her early life had been rougher than most Jinchuuriki. Unlike Kumo or Konoha Taki hadn't always been kind to her. It had taken two generations of her family leadership to resolve that and the passionate words of Suien the jounin who they all respected.

"Now once Jiraiya gets here we can begin the briefing and distribution of the squads."

Naruto reached out with his chakra sensor abilities and spotted as expected a pair of chakra coils floating in the middle of nowhere. Those coils were emitting more chakra than should be undetectable. The red head used to his friend's antics and gently inhaled. He then walked over and punched the air revealing a winded sannin.

"There is our missing team member," Naruto deadpanned.

To his credit the veteran sannin was fairly sheepish in being caught. The legend was one for theatrics and as if they rehearsed the whole thing Tsunade was glaring with her arms folded over her impressive cleavage like a suffering housewife.

"Sorry to keep you all waiting," the ever unflappable ninja said cheerily regaining his composure in a blink of an eye.

"Who is this weird looking man Naruto-nii?" Fu asked, hiding behind her favourite Konoha shinobi.

"He is an honoured shinobi, one of the Densetsu no sannin Jiraiya-sama," Naruto answered soothingly. Little kids and the elderly seem to shy away from the lively eccentric. Women just hated him on principle.

"He seems like one of those men Shibuki-nii tells to stay away from."

"He's close enough," Naruto japed, rolling his eyes at the despondent look on his sannin friend's face. "But he saved my life more than a few times Fu-chan so respect his skill if not his personality."

"Yes Naruto-nii!" she chirped waving at the sannin still from the protective shield that was Naruto's back.

"Can we start the meeting now please," Yugito huffed. Her colleagues were united in their desire to get the situation underway. Naruto was a little pissed off that he allowed this charade to play out but he had a soft spot for the young Jinchuuriki girl.

"Alright then the plan is simple," Tsunade stated, pulling a pointer stick from under the table. The leader of the hidden leaf pointed to the map that was with a shimmer of chakra activated its genjutsu producing the map of the Konoha side of the Ame/Konoha border. "We launch two coordinated attacks on their nearest bases to us. While Kumogakure no Sato has probably already started an offensive as a distraction we will spear their forces in these two locations within the monsoon valley and the nearby caves and exterminate the ninja stationed there."

"Why hasn't other Konoha ninja assisted the Kumo ninja in this other offensive?" Naruto enquired.

"They turned down our request for aid."

"And we needed theirs?" Naruto questioned feeling a little insulted. Konoha had managed to defeat both Kumo and Iwa during the last war. They weren't the underdogs in the big five villages.

"We have fewer numbers than Kumo have at present," Tsunade admitted, "But we have more ground to reclaim than they do so we need the larger force which will be led by Uchiha Obito and Aburame Shibi. I requested the additional forces after Takigakure offered some aid of their own."

"How do we divide the teams?" Jiraiya asked. "There are more of them than us. Are they leading the teams?"

"No after exchanging some messages with the Raikage it's been agreed that you Uzumaki Naruto and you Jiraiya will be leading the teams so choose away."

"I believe in age before beauty," Naruto suggested, surprised at the lack of protest from the Kumo shinobi. Jiraiya had cheeks like he had just drunk a full keg of sake from his playful jibe.

"Then I believe in me telling you to pick your team first," Jiraiya poorly retorted, walking right into Naruto's plans.

"I'll take Fu-chan," Naruto chose first knowing there was no way in hell Yugito would take orders from him and besides Fu was so happy when her name was chosen first. It ought to be illegal for her to jump so much on one spot. "Throw in Suien-san." He was a reliable veteran who he could trust to watch his back. "And finally…" He took a deliberate moment to pick his Kumo ninja that was mandatory with nobody else to choose from Konoha, "And Nii Samui-san," he decided finally since Darui might have issues with him despite the one sided victory the snowy haired ninja had won. Samui had never met him and so perfect to not want to cut his head off the first chance she could get and pawn it off as an accident. With Suien there the lightning nation's light fingered tendencies would be somewhat kept in check meaning Samui wouldn't try kidnapping Fu either.

"You will obey him as if he was me," Darui ordered. The big breasted blonde nodded stoically and walked over to join their party. "Can you assign us the strike points Hokage-sama?"

Tsunade tapped the map window and it shifted to a small scaled map of the monsoon valley that was on the map shaped like a banana. The land was so called because it was a place where it literally never stopped raining. The rich fertile fields had been abandoned by the natives long ago turning swiftly into forests thanks to the unique trees living there that were thirstier than a man stuck in the desert with only salt to eat. These forests had two very large military bases on either side facing North and South. On the Konoha side of the valley was an outpost manned by an ANBU team or it used to anyway.

"You will move together until you reach point A," she stated tapping the place marked with an X, "Which used to be the outpost. You will remove any and all opposition there and then split up to hit your other targets. We need both bases," the blonde continued slapping the two locations marked with their names, "Taken out three hours or less after you arrive via toad transportation provided by Jiraiya which is when it is predicted by Kumo will be the time they need to clean up the large fortress they are attacking at this moment. Are there any questions?"

"What if Sanshouo no Hanzo should arrive to reinforce his troops?" Suien asked. "You have not stated Hanzo was backing his forces against Kumogakure."

Naruto watched her twitch and recognised the signs that he usually watched when she was bluffing at poker manifest on her face before she regained control of her stoic expression. It seemed the old Taki soldier had asked a question Tsunade had not want to answer or more probably didn't want to think about.

"You are permitted to flee if you feel mismatched and I don't blame you if you do flee from that man. Many years ago the sannin were named after being defeated by the legendary shinobi. But he is an old man and if you see a chance to kill him." Tsunade stopped and her game face eyes drifted towards the ceiling like a scolded child. "Both of our village councils have sanctioned it. This time he goes too far and no more concessions can be made."

There hadn't ever been an issued command that allowed any of Konoha's shinobi forces to even approach Hanzo without a full squad of jounin backing them before. The man was a legend who played ping pong with their current Hokage, the most wanted criminal in the leaf village's history and the legendary toad sannin at the same time without breaking a sweat for four hours. It had carried into myth giving the Rikudō sennin a run for his money. New genin used to debate who was tougher between the freaking Sandaime Hokage and Hanzo. Minato might have earned his name in that debate if his reign hadn't been cut so short.

"Understood," Naruto and everyone else said together. Then Naruto caught the eye of his fellow team leader and a silent request was made.

"We will meet you at the gate," Jiraiya stated, "I expect Naruto needs to resupply his equipment before we depart. I will meet you at the east gate Naruto."

"Thanks," the jounin replied. "I need to give something to Hokage-sama before I leave in person anyway and it isn't so secret that _allies_ cannot see what we are doing."

"We will wait for you there then," Darui agreed, "Samui wait outside the room in the Hokage's office for your team mates."

"Yes taichou," Samui approved with a slight bow. She walked over to her fellow warriors and returned the way they came up the stairs to the Hokage office. Once the door slid shut Tsunade sighed and looked towards Jiraiya but he had already vacated the building in his usual show boating style.

"Hold up," Tsunade ordered, "I have something of my own to tell you before you do. It is in regards to the scroll incident."

Naruto cringed. After some careful thought the red head was fairly sure his leader was not completely pleased with the nuke first ask questions later approach he had taken with regards to how the assignment was carried out. Normally a shinobi of his skill would have easily possessed the skill to capture both of those chuunin with minimum effort but his haste to retake the scroll containing notes his mentor had written in had driven his rather vague orders to the cats who took the opportunity to permanently deal with the problem at hand.

"What is it Hokage-sama?" Naruto said with a slight bow.

"When you left for Nami no Kuni a second autopsy on Toji Mizuki was done after blood tests found a foreign substance the likes we have never seen before. It appeared to be some kind of biogenic neural inhibitor that reacted to virtually any cell in the human body stimulating them to improve the body it was introduced to. This protein was powered by chakra foreign to the Mizuki that with some stimulus produced this." Tsunade had taken out a small photograph of Mizuki's neck on a slab in the mortuary. On it was some kind of fuin jutsu in black ink and it fed to the jugular vein where it no doubt deployed its function from. "According to Jiraiya and Kushina-san the fuin that appeared only when I subjected the body to a lethal dose of adrenaline is similar to one Orochimaru attempted to create citing a force that could draw on the power of their Hokage in battle."

"So Orochimaru is to blame for all this then," Naruto asked in a rather ambiguous way between a statement and someone who had his question answered the way they expected it to be. Naruto would have to be on his guard even more. There was first Akatsuki and now Orochimaru on the loose kicking up a stink. To borrow a quote from Shikaku-san it was troublesome and now he couldn't keep an eye on either side as the red head had been conscripted to go into a land where the strongest shinobi still kicking from the shinobi wars could turn up. "Does Jiraiya have any intelligence on where the traitor is?"

"At this time no," the blonde Hokage said showing her annoyance at the situation. "And expect to have to listen to that old fart Danzo at some point about restraint in the near future. Who knows it would be hard to decide what was worse. Going into a war or listening to Danzo trying to seem intimidating but as far as I am concerned that is that."

"But how did Rin-san miss the fuin in her first autopsy?" Naruto asked carefully trying not to show anything but professional curiosity regarding his bed mate.

"It only appeared after we applied chakra along his jugular vein searching for blood clots or side effects of the protein."

Naruto inwardly had a small party about the massive kunai Rin had dodged. Rin was only supposed to stop processing corpses directly after doing thirty hours straight. It was a policy Shizune described meant the mistake rate had dropped dramatically. The lab assistants doing the blood tests had an easier job of things with cots to sleep in when work was scarce so they remained fresh during the dreaded triple shifts. Sometimes there were drawbacks to being capable of manipulating energy.

"I am glad Rin didn't miss anything," Naruto stated.

Tsunade clapped her hands to clear the air and looked at him expectantly. Naruto was pleased she had missed the tone he used when using her name. Man he was slipping in his old age.

"Now I need to know what was it that you needed to advertise it and insult Kumo at the same time anyhow." Tsunade asked with a raised brow and flawless execution at changing the subject when it suited the Kage. "Before your new teammate tries to change her facial expression from her usual cheeriness. I won't want to take the chance that your new teammate might take offence to just leaving her."

"Yeah we better hurry up," Fu exclaimed. "We have to destroy those invaders into the fire country." Oddly enough Suien didn't try to scold her for her inflammatory and potential treasonous statement. Speaking her mind like that had gotten better shinobi killed. That was very weird.

Naruto opened his special scroll watched the seals activate to open an enlarged scroll containing the swords he had taken from Zabuza and that weakling. He applied some chakra and in a puff of smoke both seals released their cargos.

"I have Kubikiri Bocho and the Kiba swords belonging to the Kiri no Shinobigatana Nananin Shu from my last mission. I needed to hand them over to you personally as per protocol under Konoha regulation twenty three page thirty nine subsection twelve when dealing with important artefacts it is demanded of the ninja who finds or claims them to first hand them over to the Hokage."

There was a silence for about a minute. In that time only Fu had tried to break the stillness only for Suien to hush her by putting his hand on her shoulder. Tsunade said nothing at all for what felt like an eternity making even the stoic jounin concerned before she asked a very pertinent question.

"Just what the hell happened?" Tsunade asked, "I just sent you on a simple assassination mission."

That was a pretty damn good question. It was just a shame that Tsunade's confusion would only be answered by the mission report.

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A/N There is chapter five. Um review please as I am not really feeling the love here people and constructive reviews please and flames… Try not to but it's a free country well mine is anyway lol

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	6. Epitaph Of The Salamander King

Naruto: My Way

The Red Hurricane Of Konoha

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 6: Epitaph Of The Salamander King

Disclaimer: In tribute to the mighty Uchiha clan I am issuing a new disclaimer which is this. If I owned Naruto I would have made it so Madara didn't take the piss with the super powers. Hey I'm bored I know I'll give myself the rinnegan!-Point taken no?

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The Rain country was a cursed land. It was a land that sat between several lumbering behemoths that had all at some point turned this country into a battlefield in their numerous wars since the formation of the elemental nations. This helped create a perpetual state of rebuilding and the lawlessness from those left behind from these conflicts helped with the founding of its hidden village.

Some legends said the rains had come because once long ago the land of Rain held a sacred shrine. Many millions came to pray for the end of the era that predated the elemental nations where small feuding territories continuously fought with the other. The shrine to the goddess of peace had also been sort of neutral ground, a protective talisman that warded out the wars that came out of nowhere like a bush fire. Then just as the wars came to an end, the ancient shrine was lost in a landslide created by the last of the raining season storms and not long after that the first shinobi war began.

There the clouds had settled and never stopped drenching the land in the goddess's tears. Just as if the goddess herself wept for the loss of her sanctuary that protected the masses who hated the wars that flared outside. She had kept all evilness that belonged to the race of man from this once beautiful plain of forests until her mortal vessel on the land was taken away leading to three shinobi wars being played out on those lands. Those rains had led to widespread starvation from the floods washing away fields, the formation of a shinobi village led by the greatest despot of all time arguably and until this day a brutal dictatorship that controlled all aspects of life.

It mattered little that with all the constant reconstruction of the last fifty years that the cities and towns that remained were made with the latest techniques ensuring comfort for those who could afford it. It mattered even less that all of this construction provided nigh unlimited opportunity to at least earn a wage unlike the demilitarised military survivors like the land of grass or the bear country where Hoshigakure called home. All this came with a great price of blood, sweat and tears in a never ending spiral. It was the classic scenario of where the rich became richer and the poorest were trodden on till their backs broke for almost nothing to show for it.

The land did have its more recent historical accomplishments and again arguably a source of pride. Sanshouo no Hanzo, the leader of Amegakure no Sato, a village formed from the various missing ninja that lingered after successive wars who had become tired with the squabbles of the larger nations banded together to form a village. A society they hoped would be based on the principles of self defensive and safety in numbers. These looked down upon rogues led by the salamander had repelled giants like Iwagakure and sent shivers down the backs of the Raikage of the past. He had famously even as an old man back then named the sannin while trouncing them for the first time in their history even though the overall battle was lost.

To a shinobi there was envy if you peered deep enough into the belly of the tiny Ame militia but to scholars, decent people and common civilians it was a land of misery. Nothing came in or out of that place. The Rain country was a bubble that stifled creativity and social stability in exchange unfortunately for brutality and tyranny that left the rest of the world guessing to what happened inside its deep forests when in peace time.

Naruto thought about all the information his cats had gathered about the country. There wasn't much to go on really. The economic situation was always behind closed doors and insular with little to none outside trade and the military as well concealed as the great hidden villages in the early days. There was generally no way in or anyway out of the land unless you were a diplomat or desperate. It bred an illicit haven for missing ninja of note such as the thief of the Raijin sword owned by the Nidaime Hokage, Senju Tobirama. More recently to take note of his own pupil, Uchiha Itachi, had sought shelter there too once initially after fleeing from Konoha after his failed bid to destroy his clan.

Time and time again both Jiraiya of the Densetsu no sannin, the greatest spymaster Konoha had ever seen and Naruto's own neko summoning clan had tried to infiltrate the hidden world but was rebuffed at every corner. No matter how well hidden or how well they played their parts neither side could get an infiltrator of worth or a single kitten past the border checks. The security was top notch and the strategic importance of the land remaining neutral rendered any attempt to push too far both unwise and unsafe lest they suffer another embarrassment at the hands of wily Hanzo.

But today they had no choice. Hanzo had lost his mind and attacked both Kumogakure and Konohagakure outposts on both sides simultaneously. They had killed shinobi of both countries and blood in this case begets blood. If Konoha hadn't acted along with Kumogakure then the village hidden in the clouds would have fought this battle alone. And worse they might look weak and give enemy nations reason to attack.

Naruto was sitting in a dark humid chamber with only the lantern light provided by a small feline, white haired like pearl with a brown patch of hair over its right eye and an eye patch concealing a horrific scar over the other. Its long tail overhung its master perfectly still whom was frantically scribbling with ink forged with blood onto his naked torso.

Fuin paraphernalia untidily lay scattered around his body. Be it scrolls filled with weapons, wire and other shinobi tools they sat together with their brother fuin tags and kunai and shuriken both painted and unpainted with fuin tags lay unsorted in a perfect circle. His gunmetal vest and shirt lay to the far end of the fleshy walls of his sanctuary.

The jounin had already scrolled on his hands storage seals that were crafted with multiple rings supplying different items that for the moment were empty. His naked torso had already been freshly inked with an odd spiral seal similar to the Shiki fuin on his stomach that had several perfectly straight channels that reached every point in the tenketsu that had a channel to the eight celestial gates.

All this inking and preparation was all in the aid of keeping his mind off his battle and provide some stimulus for his brain to assimilate and pick out any information he knew of to discover a potential weakness. Naruto was a shinobi who planned for the worse scenario every time and he was attempting to create a game plan for a showdown against Hanzo the Salamander.

Even two days ago he would have thought himself insane for even trying. The man was a god who rivalled the Sandaime and actually tied as a young teenager against the Nidaime Hokage. He had almost slain old Ōnoki, the Sandaime Tsuchikage and destroyed the original special operation teams of Kumo to the last man in a well planned ambush. All of Jiraiya's information on the man was decades old or hearsay that couldn't be corroborated.

Naruto stayed here in a chamber of skin unaffected by the forces of nature outside. It was the primary feature of the toad whose name the red head had already forgotten. While worthless in battle it could leap the furthest in distance and had a pocket that he was currently in that could carry wounded shinobi plus medics without feeling a damn thing outside. It was something the sannin had done as a pet project involving imbuing organic gravity seals into a tight space without vibration distorting the pathways of the seals. It was a little beyond him as it used a new approach Naruto had only ever thought was theoretical but the cat summoner had the feline with the lantern with its perfect night vision memorising what it could to write down for its master later.

But this area left him time to rest and prepare. The swift well practised brushstrokes completed their task in no time and all Naruto had to do was carefully load every item into their proper place. The multiple storage seals on his body were loaded with their arms of choice. Slender dark blades were newer items alongside their shuriken and kunai brothers. Some kunai were given tags while others remained naked and stored in other slots. In all Naruto covered every possible eventuality that his mind could conjure up. His old fashioned to some young people paranoia was something he could argue was suitable for the life of a fuin master.

The brat who mooched off his auntie would call him a jumpy old fart. Still Naruto had the last laugh. During the time he was a genin, the third shinobi war had been raging uncontrollably meaning the jounin had almost never done a mission inside the village so the red head never had the delightful D ranked assignments to do ever.

"But time to rest," Naruto said, the feline taking the dismissal with a graceful nod of its head.

"I will have the scribes immediately take notes of what I have seen here oyabun," the cat said simply with a regal voice. It closed its eyes as it bowed again and vanished in a puff of smoke leaving its summoner in pitch black conditions.

"Useful subordinate," Naruto remarked. He put on his clothing over his torso and swallowed a large green pill that acted as a sleeping pill and chakra pill at once. It also had the wondrous effect that lay dormant in his bloodstream boosting his energy levels until regular infusions of chakra like when someone used it for enhancing the body. "Thanks Tsunade-sama," Naruto japed as his head promptly hit the smooth flesh of the toad's innards, "Time for a nap."

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"Yo Naruto wake the hell up!"

Naruto stirred with lightning speed. Despite his weary head his automatic reflexes were alert. Just as if they were as unconscious as the body's need for his heart to beat or for his lungs to take in a breath of air his hands reached for the carefully placed location of his kodachi swords. His forehead protector was swiftly tied around its scabbard, an old trick of his to trick Iwa shinobi without his allies mistaking him for a target. Then as his eyes opened and adjusted to the light streaming from the ceiling the lecherous look of the sannin peered down over him like some kind of perverted deity. He added to this godly look with the rain streaming down from the crack that forced Naruto to shield his eyes with his platinum armguards.

"How long before we begin the operation?"

The sannin had a smirk, that infectious smile of his when everything was going better than expected. Naruto always felt lighter, freer when his old friend used that look, the eyes of an experienced man in his chosen profession.

"We begin fifteen minutes earlier than expected. We encountered no resistance on the way. No ambush squads or any sort of trap and it meant we could stay on the one path with no change of direction Naruto. The enemy are completely quiet and for Ame shinobi in my experience that is only a good thing. Come on up so we can have one more briefing."

"Of course Jiraiya," Naruto said, pulling his facemask up. He channelled chakra into his feet and with a little wind chakra flew perfectly straight into the air. His old friend while the toad carrying them was still performing large leaps followed the high speed movement with ease to his immediate left where Naruto re-emerged seconds later.

"Feeling a little better?"

"Apart from the sudden motion I am a bit better rested."

The view of the oncoming Amegakure dense forests from on top of a leaping toad was amazing. With a tuft of dense thunderclouds continuously in its mysterious way spewing heavy rainstorms down onto the soaked landscape the packed forest seemed to have an invisible border as it was unnaturally cut for the eye to see in a circle with no blind spots. The two bases were just in view from both sides in two perfect bases that framed the valley bottom that separated the fire nation from its neighbours and was once a quarry making the cliff rather precarious to ascend even for shinobi. It gave the Konoha ANBU stationed on the outpost on top the perfect vantage point, a lookout of the entire east side and plenty of opportunity to alert its sister bases.

The giant red amphibian, large enough to safely hold their raiding party plus the harness it wore to reduce the chakra demands of the people by securing each member of the team who had to ride it with a line of leather came to a stop abruptly. The thud it generated caught the youngest member of their team Fu by surprise as she prematurely released her safety line and fell on her ass sheepishly.

"Sorry," Fu chirped awkwardly, scratching the back of her head as she regained her footing. Naruto turned her frown upside down with an indulgent smile from him due to her antics and shot Yugito a warning look to keep her mouth shut. Unexpectedly her older sister backed the red haired jounin up with a warning glare. Fu reminded him so much of Konohamaru sometimes and his times spent with the girl back in Takigakure during the war were all positive experiences. He was not letting a disgruntled kunoichi with a weaker bijuu ruin her energy before her time.

Naruto plus everyone else apart from Jiraiya zipped like ghosts to the dew soaked grass below with a shunshin. The on alert jounin, Darui, Samui and Suien plus Naruto instantly scanned the low lying grassland for targets. His chakra senses expanded to encompass a two hundred metre radius but detected nothing apart from his team. Suien prompted Fu with an arched eyebrow that had the girl forming a single hand seal and releasing a thick fog to conceal their forms from lookouts and make it harder to be picked off by the infamous senbon launchers of the Ame sniper teams.

"Thanks again buddy!" Jiraiya bellowed to his toad ally. The toad merely disappeared into a puff of smoke. "He needs to get a social life," the sannin muttered before beckoning everyone to come closer. "The base ahead is not aware of our presence so we still have the element of surprise. So who wants to hit the base first?"

Nobody said anything for a few moments as they internally deliberated their options. Well all of them apart from Fu who was antsy but eager to contribute to the battle. She was among the strongest here and to retain that childish wonder when the girl was about to go into battle was admirable. It was certainly curious with Suien as her sensei who was old school serious like the rest of the people standing around, all examples of the previous war.

Though if you think about it her exuberance could be due to that she was the youngest one there by about ten years.

"I can do it without making much of a fuss," Naruto volunteered, "My skills involve explosives and genjutsu. Most of the Ame ninja according to my sources are poorly trained compared to us using the Iwa mandate of the second shinobi war. Some taijutsu training involving restraining, some kunai throwing and either some basic suiton ninjutsu or clever genjutsu depending on whom you get really and besides my neko clan are well versed in stealth."

"In that case we should blast them from both sides with the Jinchuuriki we have," Darui suggested, "In our mission objectives there wasn't any direct order that we had to secure the base and like Uzumaki-san says most of the Ame ninja are trash."

"We could do that," Naruto started sarcastically, earning a raised eyebrow from the snowy haired ranton user, "And reveal to two hundred or so angry Ame ninja that have to sit around while their allies slug it out futilely with Kumogakure on the other side that we are attacking them?" Naruto added distastefully. The man was a powerful shinobi but to take on that many at once was foolhardy even if his power was enormous. The Kumo shinobi was not taking every factor in. His Ranton used lightning and it was black lightning he wielded that would stick out like a sore thumb and alert the salamander king of another attack on his other front. "We should save them for blasting the bases we can afford to lose with no issues and to maximise casualties. I am betting our leaders chose to have the Jinchuuriki on this side of the border because it's widely known that Hokage-sama didn't put ours through any regimented training like you Nii-san or you Fu-chan."

"I agree with Naruto-san," Suien piped in showing his astuteness, "The Hokage and our leader Shibuki-sama plus your Raikage predicted this eventuality making the reasons for having a small raiding party all that more important instead of a larger more focused attack like the Kumo expeditionary force is undergoing now. During the last war the nations became too reliant on the power of the Bijuu and it cost them in Ame especially. Your former Jinchuuriki of the Nibi was killed by enemies expecting to see a Jinchuuriki enter the battlefield. They won't be expecting us to have any firepower such as a tailed beast on hand never mind two of them with high levels of control."

Yugito looked displeased at the reminder of her predecessor and his failing in a major battle that was coincidently fought near Ame. Iwa ninja ambushed and sealed the cat demon holder, killing him by accident and were subsequently slaughtered in the rampage that followed when it was unleashed. It had taken two months after the war ended three years later before the hidden cloud village could capture it again, risking another shinobi war in the process.

"So it is agreed," Darui agreed, "We allow Uzumaki-san to make the assault."

"I have no problem with that," Jiraiya stated blandly with his game face on, "His plan is the soundest and it might stop Hanzo if he is around from spotting us and handing our asses to us."

"Naruto-nii is the best!" Fu chirped in her opinion with a relish that kept some fire of friendliness between the two enemy countries. "He is a fuin master!"

"I guess we have no choice," Yugito conceded, "He is pretty damn amazing at fuin jutsu." Naruto hid the smirk he had from remembering their former battles with his face mask. He was pretty sure she would have told the plan to go to hell and transformed if the two tailed holder had seen it.

"And you," Darui asked, speaking to the stoic Samui who was standing on her own with her hands over her well endowed chest. "Do you agree Samui?"

"I have no issue with the plan. But perhaps we should wait in the rear on standby? You know just in case he is spotted of course."

"I have no problem with anyone watching me work," Naruto shrugged, hiding his own irritation that this woman thought some common Ame shinobi could see through his illusions. "Not like you'll see much with the genjutsu active."

There Naruto saluted his allies and in an explosive burst of speed began his zip across the plain to the first base. His hands waited until he was outside of the fog cover before forming hand seals and concealing his person in an invisibility jutsu the old sannin had invented for more perverted purposes.

The ground was boggy from the constant rainclouds that travelled across it on their mysterious travels to the land of rain. He had to be careful not to leave distinguishing footprints for eagle eyed shinobi from the base to spot by twisting the very air under his feet so to cause a "blender" effect where his footprints were distorted beyond recognition. It was not an easy trick but all elemental types i.e. any shinobi of worth was capable of it from earth users to even lightning types though they struggled on greenery (not that it mattered in mountainous Kumo)… The same way fire would too but most shinobi entrusted with these types of missions had an alternative means or they wouldn't have earned their rank.

Plus the jutsu being employed to conceal his approach was susceptible to the rain that lashed down upon it from angry clouds darkening prematurely the already fading light of the daytime. The red head had been forced to add a genjutsu as he reached the end of his journey to make any onlookers look away but that was only if they were complacent or disinterested in their task. To anyone with vigour in guard duty they would have the ability to resist.

To Naruto it was a simple task, perhaps even simplistic, being undiscovered to reach the outskirts of the base. Upon reaching the fringes Naruto ducked down into the dirt and reached into his pouch, plucking out a simple tab of paper and unsealed a telescope that he promptly buried into the mud alongside him.

The ANBU base was built with a single tower reaching into the heavens. From there surrounding its steel made base several smaller buildings such as the commander office and the various barracks were placed tightly together to act as a decoy for the real buildings. The real huts built upon an identical ninjutsu created foundations ran the perimeter of the wooden walls that were made of spikes of oak wrapped with rope for easy repair and smothered in standard anti arson fuin that were so easy to make transfers had been developed so even a dummy could use fuin.

Naruto watched for guards and for every ten feet a single Amegakure shinobi watched the outside perimeter of the outpost. Expectantly the troops were on high alert and as stiff as a board whilst easily ignoring the rain with their heavy amphibious gear on. They all wore re-breather masks that smothered their full heads, a drab grey uniform but lacking vests like other larger nations and each of them were holding swords.

They were employing unusual tactics and strategy unlike an Ame shinobi more used to fighting in their dense forests with cover and knowledge of the landscape to make up for poor training and had very good equipment for an impoverished shinobi village. Inside past the main entrance a distorted view of the interior from his location when he was not monitoring with the specially treated telescopic lens informed him of a genjutsu hiding the true comings and goings of the captured base. Their numbers were also much larger and even more so equipped better as well suggesting the ones outside of the protective embrace of the base were fodder. Naruto calculated a battle plan, envisioning several scenarios that would suit his skill range until one particularly devious idea came to mind.

The shinobi had no desire to destroy this outpost. Although simple to restore or outright rebuild the Konoha shinobi was very aware of the foreigners in the audience for his performance. To seem weak was not a very good idea with the size of the army Kumogakure was said to possess; or well at least to his intelligence gathering. Naruto intended to save this base as best as possible or even better unblemished. That was not a tall order if Naruto played his cards right.

Naruto slapped an explosive tag onto his telescope, rigged the timer and leapt out of his makeshift trench whilst still invisible. He flew at full speed right for the main entrance using the rather blatant use of his wind chakra to lower his air resistance that would create a sound sooner or later and was just within range of the guards when his charge exploded showering the land in shrapnel.

Now it all depended on the guards reactions. They played right into his hands when they all assumed they were under attack and started searching for the invading army. When none came confusion had them doubting if the boom was from a leftover explosive note from a previous war. Some of them seemed more experienced and paranoid and ordered the troops to retreat into the base for the expected attack where Naruto took note of the man on the tower roof peering down with binoculars.

Naruto hugged the wooden wall as added insurance, hiding in its shadow from any observer and formed a series of rapid hand seals. He bit his finger and slammed his palm into the soft earth forming the summoning jutsu that with a puff of smoke formed Kuroneko. The feline was naturally perfectly concealed with its dark fur and was actively hiding its forehead protector and its other potentially shining metal armaments around its stomach.

The jounin unsealed a pack of barrier tags and slapped one on the anti-arson seals. The black tag started to glow an angry red as it stole the energy of the previous seal and vanished from sight. The cat watched with unblinking green night vision before nodding its head and accepting the rest of the pack and leaping onto the side of the wall. It saluted him with its tail to its forehead before dashing off horizontally to begin its task.

While the ninja waited, counting the time it was taking mentally in his head for him to rig up his little surprise the red headed former Uzushio shinobi released his invisibility technique and opened up his vest. His gloved hand ruffled the inside of his armoured vest until his naked fingers plucked out carefully two vials containing a purple fluid and a small crystal like substance engraved with a piece of fuin paper that was floating around the centres perfectly. He shook them allowing them both to fizz where a gentle application of chakra, not too big in case a sensor was stationed inside that finished their preparation that dissolved the crystals and caused the papers to combust.

Naruto then waited out the remaining time his feline was taking by taking control of his breathing until his heart was no longer racing and the tiredness that lingered inside him was put to the back of his mind. He had no intention of letting Tsunade's pill take full effect until it was required. So far nothing had gone wrong and he was almost thankful that this mission had occurred so the events of his previous one didn't haunt him.

Kuroneko landed on his shoulder gently and stretched itself so to whisper in his ear. The older shinobi had heard its arrival of course and was prepared for its weight.

"The charges are all set oyabun. The guards do not suspect a thing and from what I heard their radio has been damaged by the rain and it has decided that all troops are to remain inside the base. The commander suspects an attack from the east."

Naruto petted its head not in thanks but as a sign the message was received. The plan was going well. The commander of the base was expecting a gigantic attack force like Kumo had launched on the other side and wouldn't see this coming. The cat was handed the vials and obeyed the order the red head tapped on its forehead with his fingers. The cat's weight vanished in an instant.

Naruto applied chakra to the first tag he altered and leapt full pelt out of the invisible barrier that was slowly engulfing the outpost. With high efficiency it was moments later the feline reappeared next to him at his feet. They watched together as the completed barrier rippled from the rain lashing down upon it sealing their enemies inside.

"The airborne poison was released oyabun," Kuroneko declared, "They were all huddled around the main office in the centre."

Naruto laughed mirthlessly at the fools that mistook the buildings the ANBU used as decoys for the real thing. They had only sped up their own demise. It wasn't long until the panicked sentry on the tower disappeared in a burst of speed to investigate his mysteriously dying allies.

The beauty of the barrier was in its space time principles. To them the ripples of the rain weren't there but on the outside it was as plain as day what was going on. True the rain had stopped soaking them but the cyanide gas dissolved in water hence the barrier would easily help finish them off.

The shinobi waited for five more minutes for movement in case the re-breather masks came with filters, unlikely considering the costs made the major villages balk at buying any in bulk before tapping an order again on the feline's head that it took for the command to seek out allies and to bring them to his position. While the cat did this Naruto unsealed the sealed off gas chamber and let the rain water do the rest.

The blue eyed shinobi reapplied his cloaking jutsu and crept over to the main entrance. He peered across its perimeter before releasing the tension built up in relief and releasing his technique.

Inside there were nothing living. Even the bugs that had crawled across the floors of the base lay dead as they had dropped and when it came to humans it too was nothing but a mortuary of empty soulless corpses. The base was pretty damn well untouched for an invasion apart from a few burns and holes from explosions. It made Naruto wonder how the hell ANBU, an elite group of Konoha shinobi, their finest that could rub shoulders with the publicly known elite jounin had been so well caught off guard against a bunch of militia trained shinobi who rarely ventured out of their forests. His eyes scanned for clues but found none. Instead Naruto formed a few hand seals and while using his already bleeding digit summoned a pack of small cats that were covered head to toe in white robes like one would wear on a surgeon with matching leather satchels held on their backs by their forehead protectors that were wrapped around their middles.

"Secure the scene, taking special interest in finding out how they got in and prepare the bodies for the investigation team."

"Yes oyabun," one of the strangely dressed cats said as its comrades began their work. By using their tails they extracted various tools and began organising their investigation. The report would be given to ANBU command in the hopes this wouldn't happen again. It was a futile thought but Naruto found the little gestures helped keep his mind from going insane from the "what ifs?" of life.

Naruto supervised for the time it took for the alliance troops to reach the base. He was not uncomfortable to be surrounded by the bodies of the dead. Hell Naruto had spent many times while in field hospitals with the recently deceased surrounding him. Some of them had even been his friends. The ninja was like a lump of granite and totally impervious to the very human phobia of being reminded of what every human being eventually turned into no matter how powerful they become.

"Good work," Jiraiya complimented as he led the other shinobi into the camp. He looked around and nonchalantly whistled his appreciation. "I saw the burnt out fuin tags. You gas them then?"

Naruto watched the reactions searching for potential weaknesses among the Kumo shinobi. Darui, the white haired man was unchanged from the brutal manner of death while Yugito, the poor Jinchuuriki whom Naruto knew personally had an amazing sense of smell was slightly miffed from the stench of the inert particles of containment fluid in the air. The stoic Samui was stone faced as well. It was only poor Fu that was slightly green showing off her inexperience. Suien was patting her back awkwardly.

"I just used some cyanide gas," Naruto said uncaringly, "The barrier was just something to keep the rain out. If they had seen the barrier going up they could have escaped quite easily. I just used a decoy to keep them paranoid enough to huddle together in the one place and made sure they didn't try to make a run for it once they all started dying."

Of course the mission record would be more detailed but handing over precise plans on how he managed to subdue an entire base with no violence or force to questionable allies was not something Naruto ever intended to do. His old friend Obito had accidently done that faux pas and Minato soon drilled into his head even if a girl was pretty you still checked for signs of manipulation.

"This is where we will part ways for the second stage," Darui said, "I suggest we keep using the same method of operation as Uzumaki-san has done and employ our bijuu in an all out assault then mop out what is left."

"Command agreed to this already hence why we were loaned Takigakure's Jinchuuriki," Jiraiya said evenly although Naruto had read the irritation in his body language. He didn't suffer fools very well despite acting like one and like Naruto had read the man was probing the Konoha and Takigakure shinobi psychological reactions even now. Darui was a dangerous man to risk pissing off a sannin and a jounin who were both very capable of subduing a Jinchuuriki and with some warning his infamous storm jutsu in mid operation while they were under the flag of a hasty truce. "They do not care about the state of those bases as we already have blown the bridges across the valley and plan to rebuild our defence line up on top of the cliff just a little faster than we originally planned."

"Let's get started then," Naruto suggested, pulling his soaked red hair out of his face while cursing Kakashi once more for hiding his secret for that impossible hair of his, "We will use formation arrow. Good hunting Jiraiya and let us rendezvous here," Naruto said with a bow, "I'll buy the first round once we get home."

"That is a promise," Jiraiya laughed loudly, "Time to move. We will use straight line formation. Darui will lead with Yugito behind and I will take the rear for support."

"Watch your back nee-san," Yugito said to her sibling, glaring briefly as the red head jounin who got the message as Samui stepped back to join her team. Team Jiraiya vanished in a flash of speed and Naruto turned to inspect his troops.

"We will move with Fu taking the front. Both I and Suien will protect her flanks and as for you Nii-san I wish for you to cover the rear and be our spike in case we are ambushed. The term "spike" in this case was a reference to her very important and dangerous role of intercepting ambushes from above and corralling her team to safety by attacking first should they be intercepted. The Yondaime once claimed its original name was the herder. "The plan is to reach within five hundred feet; Fu will release and fire off a bijudama at the camp then she will pull back and pick off any survivors that get away from us three who will act as the second wave." He turned to the unresponsive lone Kumo jounin. "Can you use any raiton jutsu?"

"I know a fair few," she said cryptically, wary of him trying to stealing intelligence about her with wily methods.

"Suien and you will release a combination technique the moment we reach the entrance of the base," Naruto ordered, "With the valley keeping reinforcements at bay I will hang back and use Kuroneko," he stopped and in that same breath the feline was resting on his shoulder, "To form a tag team to mop up more of the survivors that try to flee using the valley river below."

"You expect them to try and escape by plunging a hundred feet into the valley where they will meet a raging river?" Suien asked with a raised eyebrow.

"The re-breather masks contain a small oxygen cylinder and are made to be shock resistant with the use of fuin," Naruto explained, "It is one of the few things Konoha knows about them recently. It wouldn't be lethal to them to jump. They might break a few bones but the river gets quieter just a little bit downriver."

"It seems you are still doing less of the actual work," Samui observed, "A bijudama is a lethal technique using toxic chakra from a tailed beast. Why should it just be both of us to dive into it?"

"The bijuu chakra dissipates almost instantly after it is manufactured and altered," Fu said surprisingly, showing a new found maturity although Naruto had seen her feet shaking from impatience. "Shibuki-nii tested it once and found that out."

"Besides," Naruto said, smiling at Fu for her attempt to help him out, "We still need an observer who can see the entire camp in case Hanzo turns up. I do not need to explain why it is a bad idea to mess with Hanzo now?"

That statement ended anymore protests. The threat of meeting that man and the death that would most result from it settled them to action. Naruto signalled to the Taki shinobi that had Samui falling into line on the rear.

They exited the base following Fu at her maximum speed. She was jounin ranked; something that while not really at the scale of the five great hidden villages, in her case was very valid. He had seen the effortless fog created showing her mastery of suiton ninjutsu, her footing for speed running and accelerated mastery of chakra control came from Naruto on behalf of the Hokage teaching her the Kage bunshin to accelerate her training, a method Konohamaru was soon going to be using under supervision from Jiraiya, now that his own chakra was basically under control. Her taijutsu was obviously something to watch out for. Her lack of equipment was either a worrying sign of overreliance on her tailed beast or a signal she preferred hand to hand showing that her lethal taijutsu techniques had been taught to her by Suien whose methods relied on holds and other attacks involving vulnerable parts of the human anatomy.

They descended down the valley wall with little to no problem. Their chakras easily counteracted the crumbling rocky surface and kept them in perfect formation. Naruto at the right flank, Suien on the left and especially Samui in the rear were watching for signs of attackers hiding in small dug out caves on the rock bed they could use for snatch and slash tactics. Once clear of the vertical downwards climb they took a moment with their bodies crouched to all look for any other unusual movements before moving on.

The base they were supposed to attack was a bridge post that controlled the immigration between the fire nation and the country of rain. The bridge had been blown out previously by dying ANBU troops with fuin located over their hearts as remote detonators that recorded signs of death involving violence and each were linked to the other ANBU remotely meaning if two thirds died all at once the bridge would explode. The resulting explosions briefly released a toxic cloud to catch off guard any enemy that tried to leap across the monsoon valley at its narrowest points.

It was one of Naruto's better designs that he copied from a rejected idea of his aunt. She was so proud of him for figuring out how to differentiate between natural and unnatural death.

The base was not that much different from the one Naruto had rescued not so long ago apart from the two entrances instead of the one that allowed every citizen no matter how rare they were to be unable to cross into the fire country without first being examined by customs for contraband. It was built to be used only in shifts with the main base above them used as barracks with a sturdier wall to resist projectiles fired from across the gulf of the valley to a small chakra barrier that the build up of chakra above a certain limit.

That begged the question once more just how Ame managed to get away with this without reducing the outposts to nothing. It was a question that made the red head feeling awfully ominous about things. Something just wasn't quite right…

"I'm beginning my transformation," Fu shouted over the roaring rain that had gained a bit of steam as they had climbed down.

Naruto waited with bated breath for Fu to make her move. The little girl seemed to show no signs of changing at all until suddenly a vile chakra invaded his personal space. A powerful red chakra flooded out of her body with amazing speed and ever increasing foulness like smelling a corpse left to rot in the sun for a week. Its proximity made her flanking friends break away to avoid being irradiated and fall into line directly behind her.

Naruto watched closely for future reference when it came for Konohamaru to take the trials to become a wielder of the nine tailed fox. The girl maintained a steady breathing pattern and almost like she was choreographing the release of the beast Fu unfurled tail after tail of devilish chakra until it covered her entire body like a cloak. While she maintained her humanoid form her head had become shaped like a stag beetle with mandibles around her face and gigantic round eyes that watched as small bubbles of blue and red chakra began to gather on one point at the tip of the mandibles.

The rasengan had come about from Minato observing the Yonbi releasing one of these infamous attacks. The spinning of chakra to form a spiralling ball followed the same principles but thankfully was not so easy to replicate. The chakra no matter how much control the jailer took possession of was still sentient enough for the beasts of chakra to take control of to maintain its integrity.

Fu roared a most magnificent sound of defiance when she released her awesome power into the camp. Naruto stopped his charge and threw down three seal tags in front of him, dragging Suien into it as well. The field that came from it was orange in colour and filtered out the brightness of the red chakra so there was no need to shield their eyes as Samui at his right had done.

When all was said and done the small base was no more. The smoking wreckage was devastated that soon met its complete end when the cliff edge the base was founded upon gave way and plunged it to the abyss below. Fu reduced her power down to a single tail, showing total control over her tailed beast for the speed at how she tamed it. She was allowed to show off her human body with sphere like eyes that were still her own like they had been infected with conjunctivitis. The small girl never looked fiercer than she did at this moment and Naruto was proud of her. The second part of their plan seemed unnecessary.

Even Naruto had underestimated the power of the tailed beasts. If seven tails could make this much destruction just what the hell was possible with nine tails? Naruto was already having vision of his little brother, nephew (still not totally sure) wearing the Hokage hat and not giving his uncle (old man, old fart) a chance to take a seat on it if his chance ever should come across again. The breathtaking chaos had Naruto needing to say something to the energetic girl.

"Good work Fu-chan!" Naruto shouted, breaking decorum, "You did a fantastic…"

From the forests of Ame something shot out of the trees and snatched Fu. The girl barely had a time to scream before she was lassoed across the valley and into the forest.

"Fu!" Suien shouted, dashing to the edge of the valley. "Naruto-san what are we going to do?"

Naruto was on autopilot at this point. His heart started racing releasing the benefits of the chakra pill in his bloodstream. His mind was filled of vision of Hayate and his promise never to watch a comrade die again if he could stop it. His own master spoke his many wise words and then Fu herself with memories of his time in Taki.

His body moved before his mind had even made a decision. His heart trumped his common sense as the ninja redistributed his chakras to his feet, bent down to make a starting crouch for a run and exploded with power. The raw chakra spewing from his feet made them seem possessed by a demon of blue fire as the shinobi leapt across the entire valley in a single bound. He almost cleared it forcing the introduction of his kodachi swords and the flow of wind chakra to turn them into makeshift climbing gear. The ninja reached the other side by using those tools as springs and took off into the forest without reclaiming them. In his mind there was no more time.

"Kuroneko," Naruto said between breaths maintaining his breathing rate and closely watching his "whiskers" guiding him through the spaces between trees his body could or could not fit through. His spatial awareness and his chakra senses detected his prey, Fu her massive chakra signature almost being dwarfed by the being that was in front of her holding her captive. "Kill without prejudice," he commanded.

"We dance to the beat of death?" the cat enquired.

"We dance to the song of the devil," Naruto corrected, discussing tactics and preset formations discussed between the two entities. Kuroneko was his most trusted partner next to the older felines who rarely saw action.

"Understood oyabun," Kuroneko declared, waiting for the first overhanging branch they passed and leapt off his boss.

Naruto's chakra senses homed in on the wiry chakra signature holding Fu hostage and allowed Naruto to fold wind chakra into blades like Tonfa around his forearms. He timed his jumping accordingly and while his prey was in mid leap the ninja slammed his fists together completing the circuit and while the clenched fists were pulled away released an enormously dense wind blade moving at nigh supersonic speeds. His timing was crucial and thankfully the wind snapped the chain of chakra releasing his precious cargo.

The enemy stopped almost as soon as the chain was snapped. The noises a ninja made navigating through forests made hearing things harder and the chakra manipulated whatever the fuck had captured the seven tails was weightless. It made Naruto curious as he slung a flurry of explosive type shuriken designed to blow up like shrapnel bombs while he ducked down and sped up to snatch the falling Jinchuuriki out of the air. He reached the safety of a nearby tree with a thick trunk and hugged the small girl into his own body when it exploded.

"Are you alright Fu-chan?" Naruto murmured into her ear. The girl looked dazed like chakra exhaustion had set in and was unresponsive. His fingers were sticky from wounds and the unwanted scent of poison wafted from his fingertips as well. "Fuck," Naruto grumbled, reaching into his pouch and slapping an explosive magnesium charge into the tree. "I do not need this right now."

Suddenly a whistling sound entered his ears that were being deafened by the blood pounding in them. Naruto replaced both he and his charge with a log containing an explosive note and the resulting explosive released a cloud of bright red magnesium, a flare of sorts to let his allies well Suien anyway since Samui was an unknown to find them. It was his main hope Jiraiya would detect them too. His worst suspicions were coming true.

As if he was from the very fires of hell himself Sanshouo no Hanzo stepped through the magnesium fire on top of a very large and pissed off salamander.

Hanzo the salamander was a man who was rarely seen. The only picture of the man in Konoha Intelligence's archives was black and white from the time the Nidaime Hokage discussed a treaty between the two nations. He had changed very little perhaps with more grey hair than before and a few wrinkles here and there but essentially nothing much more had been altered. His re-breather mask was still the top of the line model with a specially built funnel on one side that could negate almost any poison and provide oxygen for several hours if the man just so happened to be knocked unconscious or trapped underwater for a period of time. He still wore his clothing like a Konoha shinobi as if it had been tailored to fit him with the green vest and flowing black cloak like kimono underneath that ran to his toes. The familiar black eyes penetrated through Naruto's very being as the sentient like sickle and chain he used as his primary weapon glittered with unhidden malice in its intentions towards the red hurricane.

"You have something of mine boy," Hanzo said, his voice scratchy from the voice box projecting his words. "Hand her over and I won't have to kill you."

The killing intent Naruto projected from sheer frustration at his circumstances leaked from him to rouse the delirious Fu who was slipping between states. Her power would heal her from poisons with time but she was a nonentity in the coming fight.

Fight or flight was now the question. Did he dare try to outrun a legendary shinobi while he had transport and Naruto had nothing near the size of the famous grey salamander to rely on? But to fight would mean to leave Fu vulnerable and…

His eyes caught the glitter of metal and something old and almost forgotten reverberated through his entire soul. It was fear. Pure undulated fear had crept in and was now enjoying its return from an age old absence inside him. His mind was in disarray and the killing intent the man seemed to almost enjoy wilted as the older shinobi returned it with aplomb.

"Kuroneko we will dance in the forests of death and watch upon the gods of death with no fear," Naruto shouted, throwing Fu into the air and forming a series of hand seals. He breathed in and breathed out a vacuum sphere of air that surrounded his target. The salamander seemed to do nothing until he and his pet turned into water.

The chain shot at him from his left that had Naruto tilting his head to avoid decapitation or loss of his oesophagus. The rest of the chain in mid movement looped around behind him from the front making Naruto being forced to duck before the veteran shinobi was strangled by the returning sickle trying to make a noose to hang him with. Naruto's thrown kunai pushed away the chain trying to capture Fu coming to earth and the resulting spin kick he made using Fu as a counter weight upon capturing her in his arms activated a seal on his ankle releasing the slim metal throwing knife that shot out for Hanzo's throat.

The wily salamander saw right through his attack, catching and throwing back the blade plus a hundred more with a series of hand seals to trigger the mass replications. Naruto spun on the spot to blast a hurricane of wind that showed no prejudice towards human, plant, tree or thrown weapon shredding everything for two hundred metres to create a clearing. Hanzo retreated, allowing his lizard only to keep just ahead of the blast so not to be pulled too far behind from his prey lest Naruto actually escape in the confusion.

Naruto took the time to put Fu into a fireman's lift for speedy travel and threw his whole cache of smoke bombs to hasten an already compromised retreat judging from the oncoming sound of the chain.

Kuroneko landed on top of his head, hissing defiantly at the weapon threatening his master. Seeing his chance to implement his orders the feline snatched the chain with its tail and slashed clean through the metal links of the chain like a hot knife through butter. The feline hit the ground roughly as Naruto escaped but a strangled meow of shock had Naruto stopping and looking back foolishly.

The cat was suffocating but was already slipping through the constricting fragment of chain containing the sickle end. It pleaded with its eyes for him to go and run Naruto did acting like a spooked deer. His retreat was not the smoothest ever done. The fear had ruined his ability to anticipate spaces and branches had cut through his uniform and vest until Naruto stopped at the very edge of the valley just outside of the forests.

"Naruto-san!" Suien shouted from across. Samui was also in action wrapping shinobi wire around a kunai.

"Uzumaki-san," Samui shouted, catching his attention. "Use the wire to get across." She threw the kunai plus wire, unravelling a large circle of the material that Naruto caught. He had caught her plan and swiftly stabbed it into the soaking soil of the cliff top. He only needed to get across fifteen inches anyway so the former Uzushio ninja didn't care precisely about how secure it was. While Samui secured her end of the line with the help of Suien, the red head was again sooner under siege from the damn sickle and chain that was after him again. Naruto this time jumped into the air and landed on top of the offensive weapon. His spare hand reached for a kodachi, just barely grabbing onto it by applying chakra to stick to its surface and plunged the weighted end of the chain into the ground.

While panting from the shock of actually escaping with his life Naruto climbed onto the wire and began to cross which was the point where his luck finally ran out.

A horrible burning pain exploded into the small of his back. Naruto staggered, even falling off the fragile wire but his chakra steadied him from underneath the wire. His world spun but he held ever tightly to Fu who still would not awaken. He knew Hanzo had stabbed him with something and right now the Jinchuuriki was his important objective to complete. If Hanzo managed to snatch Fu away Naruto would not be capable of forgiving himself.

He was damn sure Hatake Sakumo would be getting some company soon if that happened. He refused to allow it to happen. Fu was not becoming a slave of that bastard Hanzo, the evil despot of the hidden rain.

With anger powering his movements Naruto did quite possibly the most dangerous manoeuvre possible while walking beneath a wire. He let go with his feet, catching the razor sharp wire with his gloved hand, shredding his palm and spun around to make one handed somersaults to give him enough perpetual force to throw Fu at the surprised people on the other side. Suien let go of the wire, his hands gushing with crimson surprising Samui who also let go of the wire bridge and allowed Naruto to plunge into the valley.

With his fearless risky moves at hand Naruto did another concentrating all his wind chakra under his feet to make an updraft. His chakra caught onto the top of it with an unusual application of the water walking exercise and the leap that followed back onto the side Hanzo was waiting on was foolhardy but saved his life. His hand just caught the kodachi still hanging there. His next jump with both feet caught the surface of the cliff and while he was using his knees to pull his body upwards yanked the kodachi out of the earth just in time to parry the chain shooting across the valley to recapture Fu.

Naruto walked towards his doom, retaking his other kodachi sword that kept the wriggling links of chain stabbed onto it at bay. His back was throbbing but that rush of adrenaline was assimilating his fear to produce pride, rage and fury. The jounin knew he was no match for the shinobi but damn Naruto was going to try anyway.

Kuroneko landed on top of Hanzo's head and slashed at his face. The leader of the hidden rain punched the feline away who used a neko jutsu to grow the size of his claws and slashed at the soft flesh of the salamander. While the lizard bucked slightly Naruto formed a half seal by cradling his kodachi with one hand and vanished.

Hanzo put his hands together to dispel the genjutsu and looked around for an advancing attacker only to find it was a bluff. Naruto was halfway through an intricate dance of slashes that had the man revealing the source of his chain that was hidden under his billowing shirt to block them.

Several solid watery projectiles, the speciality of the hidden waterfall village from Suien forced the man back for Naruto to slash at the old man's throat. The expulsion of poisonous smoke from the Ame leader's salamander had Naruto in retreat to the edge of the valley leaving Naruto somewhat trapped. The cyclone his mouth's breath produced collected all the poison that drifted towards his position and was reused to block his superior foe's line of sight.

When the smoke cleared Naruto was nowhere to be found. Hanzo dissipated the genjutsu once more but with no red haired shinobi to be seen. He repeated the process repeatedly but it was not in time to avoid the new scar to add to the number already on his cheek. With the blood in his eye to distract Hanzo he was unable to avoid the pin like missiles of red hair fired at his body nor the impact of Naruto spinning at him in his armour of hair reshaped to resemble a chainsaw blade. Naruto plunged right through him as Hanzo once more became water even if his salamander did not follow suit.

The added screams of an enraged lizard Naruto had added to his own was more than enough to be sure Kuroneko had taken advantage. Although Naruto never stopped to check the lack of space to fight in was corrected by the red head. Upon returning his hair to its proper length his hands, filled with those interesting storage circles were activated allowing a rapid throwing barrage of kunai wrapped with explosive seals on the nearby trees. The resulting explosions reverberated through the land.

Naruto waited in the smoke and fires of his explosives in wait for the next move. Feeling safe shrouded in black smoke his hand shielding his mouth was gently breezing away the smoke from his face helping the chemicals in his face mask. But it was all in vain. He was not sure if it was the introduction of the fires making unnecessary noise or not but he was not in time to avoid the chain that latched onto his neck, scratching his jugular vein and leaking vengeful poison into his veins.

Naruto struggled against the chain that tightened as it was tugged taut like a bear trap. The approaching footsteps of his enemy as his chakra levels plummeted and his body turning limp left permanent marks that would last longer than any physical scar he might receive from the stab wound on his back.

"You have fought a good battle boy," Hanzo taunted, ever tightening his chain the closer he reached him. "You stole back what I had already taken, returned her to the safety of your comrades and repelled my entire attack while retaking all the territory I had claimed in the name of Ame and the rain country." The sagely old man clapped his hand over his vest in mock applause only reducing Naruto nearly to the point of tears in helplessness. "Only the Densetsu no sannin have ever pushed me to this point before and I fought them for hours."

"Clearly you mustn't have forgotten that my summon beat yours too," Naruto taunted from behind him. Hanzo looked back; his eyes wild loosening his chain's hold on him to lash out only to realise Naruto had tricked him with a simple genjutsu with his rapidly depleting chakra. The ninja opened a tab of paper stored on the hilt of his kodachi; the other left to drop on the ground and injected himself with an antidote to the poison. As his muscles woke up like they had been taking a sly nap his free hand, aflame with pins and needles unsealed a kunai fashioned with an explosive note from his palm and threw it point blank at the Kage like shinobi.

The resulting explosion was massive and sent Naruto flying into the safety of the forest from the sheer power of the shockwave generated. He was under no delusions the chain had just attack capabilities and regenerative abilities. His eyes caught the orangey tinge of superheated steel wrapped protectively around its master, causing the ninja to resist using his remaining kodachi as a projectile to see if it would crack through before planning ahead his next move.

Naruto scaled up the nearest tree with his hands and feet, planting explosives as he went. He then reached the top of the tree line, leapt into the air exposing his form to his attacker that was luckily hidden with the remaining smoke the rain hadn't smothered from his latest bang and detonated the next series of bombs.

The red hurricane revelled in the comfort of the smoke and briefly let go of the fear of his chakra running out with it being so low. Naruto took shelter in the falling tree burning gloriously against the shadows of the forest and spread the fires around with the application of wind. Now it would be harder to hide the slim chain with the extra light provided.

Hanzo was still as omnipotent as ever. This time a powerful chakra, enough for Naruto to sense without the need of trained chakra senses signalled the arrival of a powerful suiton ninjutsu was being released turning the rain into a barrage of horrible death. Naruto retaliated by throwing three kunai marked with barrier tags into the air. He was stabbed several times for his trouble before the triangular barrier was pulsing an angry red against the intruding rain missiles. The fires were put out by another geyser of steaming hot water that battered against the barrier until it broke away as the kunai came loose. Naruto was cooked alive like a lobster before a deft removal of a storage seal from under his sleeve revealed a miniaturised storage seal and activating it swallowed every drop of the water in an instant. The overworked fuin, a very dangerous seal that broke the rules of the speed of how large objects were meant to be sealed by bypassing a critical safety point overloaded from the sudden unexpected strain and combusted to ashes.

"You are doing very well shinobi," Hanzo mocked from the shadows as he stepped into the light. More trees had been felled making an additional clearing that reached the fringes of the original. He had his sickle and chain hung around his torso openly with its point of origin under his sleeve. The man was soaked to the bone, drenched even but he seemed unfazed for a man of his advanced fears. "Should I give you a nickname?"

"He already has one," a familiar voice spoke boastfully; "It is the red hurricane of Konoha." The rasengan that made Hanzo replace himself with a water clone soaked up the moisture and scattered it to the four winds as it was plunged through the clone's torso.

"Jiraiya," Naruto breathed, "About fucking time you turned up you lecher!"

The proud sannin stood as proudly as a fierce lion protecting his cub. He was very angry; his eyes promising murder for his old enemy hurting his friend. The raw power dwarfed Naruto's own greatly and warmly reinvigorated his will to fight. He was saved. The sannin was an incredibly powerful shinobi and not the young man who had faced down the salamander before.

Samui arrived not so long after on top of a small toad wearing samurai armour and carrying a naginata. The stoic blonde climbed down, unsheathed her sword and took her place next to the sannin. She was the first to notice the whistling chain and parried it with her sword. She wrapped it around her sword and pulled it down; jiggling her generously proportioned upper body as she did. Naruto extended the wind chakra on his blade, lengthening it with chakra and snapped the chain Samui was holding at bay clean off.

The free chain wriggled on the ground as if it was a wounded serpent and without warning and to the red head's horror because of his knowledge of how the chain worked it leapt back onto its target. It surrounded her swiftly, snaring and digging into her flesh and releasing its toxin into her bloodstream. The girl wriggled but had no need to wait for long before Naruto found new strength, coating his hands in wind chakra and yanking the chain from the girl. It tried to take him as its new target but Naruto spun again to create a hurricane that was sharper than the keenest steel sword and reduced it to slag. He unsealed his spare antidote and dosed her with it on her naked shoulder whilst holding the dazed girl in her arms.

"Explain why you brought her of all people with you instead of Darui the strongest," Naruto demanded, "And I swear to god pervert if it's just because she has breasts that could smother a baby seal I will so…"

His rant was interrupted by a return of the rain missiles. Naruto shielded both her and him by expanding his hair to again make his armour that resisted the weapons with ease. It was clear from earlier observation Hanzo wouldn't approach when it was active and the sannin had to be aware of this fact too as he too used his white hair as a shield from what Naruto could see from the small observation hole he made.

"We encountered a larger enemy than expected at our target," the sannin said, well shouted over the screeching noise of watery bombs hitting the ground or bouncing off certain shinobi's hairy shields, "They started babbling about Hanzo the mighty old ninja on the other side and when we saw your flare we were already almost finished mopping them up."

"So why is she here then?" Naruto

"My captain insisted," Samui replied, her voice was breathy against his ear.

"Can you feel your body yet?" Naruto asked.

"I have restored function over my limbs," she answered bluntly. "Thank you for helping me," she added almost stubbornly.

"Wake up and help me then," Naruto stated, "Once Hanzo moves in we use black and white duet. Do you understand?" It had been a while since Naruto had heard about tactics used by the Kumogakure no Sato forces.

The woman offered a smirk and a nod. "What about the toad sannin?"

Naruto shrugged. "He figures out his own rhythm."

They waited for the barrage to cease. And when it did a rush as a torrent of water like a river had burst its banks erupted across the land, rumbling the ground as it did. The sound of yet more deforestation in action warned Naruto to release his technique and together Samui and the red head moved into action.

She sheathed her sword and entered a taijutsu stance. Naruto ditched his remaining kodachi mournfully and waited the coming explosive power of water in action. The newborn river of water chakra was surprisingly saturated in lightning, a tactic Naruto could appreciate being a favourite of his own and the ninja poured his final last jutsu of the evening. His hands flashed through seals at an incredible rate finishing with a trick of biblical proportions. His wind jutsu produced a wind blade that flew through the water and prematurely exploded outwards parting the sea so to speak. They took the chance and leapt onto the water just as Hanzo reappeared angry that the wind chakra had soaked into the water disturbing the lightning chakra present and having to swap with a water clone as a new rasengan was shoved through his head courtesy of a sage.

Hanzo reappeared on the surface of the water, formed a few hand seals with his thumb freely bleeding and summoned a new salamander. Jiraiya copied the move summoning the very angry Gamabunta. He was a grumpy old fart with a blue jacket, skin like a sunburnt fish with a horrible scar across his left cheek that greatly resembled the one Kakashi bore that had nearly taken his eye with it. He had sheathed a tantō like blade and as explained before was a cantankerous old fool. And to think Minato had wanted Naruto to sign the contract once just before Naruto came into contact with the felines.

Naruto preferred the loyal felines. They may be small but they packed a punch. On the gist of the moment Naruto sacrificed the last of his chakra completely, reaching for a soldier pill despite the dangers and slammed a half seal making hand into the ground with fresh blood from his ruined vest sleeve.

It summoned a large house cat sized feline maybe three or four inches taller than Kuroneko with brown wild fur like someone had taken the time to gel it spiky. Its eyes sparkled with lightning, green plasma perhaps and its tail twirled a staff that looked like a lightning rod. Its feet were gnarled with sinister needle thin metal claws and even its tongue was pierced. It also wore a helmet the Nidaime Hokage was said to favour.

"Raineko," Naruto commanded, "Direct all lightning away from us and Kuroneko," Naruto waited the second it took for the ghostly ninja cat to land on his shoulder, "Keep an eye on your brother. Black and white duet!" he bellowed to Samui who understood and dashed forward just as the feline once again left its familiar perch.

His chest was burning from indigestion and Naruto wished that were the case. His body was reacting violently against the repeated infusion of chakra that didn't belong to it. His tenketsu were slowly being clogged up with particles of foreign chakra, his coils were searing like they were touching a hot iron and the pathways between tenketsu were narrowing dangerously. He was nearing burnout. The jounin was unguarded in his bodily duress and from what Naruto caught an unguarded glimpse from; the toad sannin knew it as well.

As they moved to clash together as one perfect team Hanzo revealed one last trick nobody could have possibly seen coming by unravelling the entire kusarigama that orbited the ancient ninja's body a dozen times over reaching at least ten metres outside of his body. Then with a hand seal it exploded.

The shrapnel bomb for that was it was closest to was too fast for anyone to put a defence. Gamabunta dived under the water with Jiraiya holding on with chakra laced feet for safety, Raineko and Kuroneko vanished in puffs of smoke but Samui and Naruto were not quick enough. With an uncharacteristic display of chivalry, possibly from chakra delirium (caused by chakra bubbles in the brain) or maybe a reaction from being aware of how he might die anyway from chakra poisoning the red head shot through past Samui and spread spread-eagled himself in the direct path of the metal.

Naruto felt it riddle through his entire form. Every pointy piece of death that perforated his vest was as if agony itself had been given a makeover and the searing burn when it penetrated his limbs, crushing bone when it could and splashed blood all over his body was beyond description. He was pushed back by the force of each shell that struck him down, rained down hell after hell upon his mortal body until Naruto succumbed, falling to his knees. But remained through it all the professional refused to plunge to his doom by standing on top of the water until a single lapse of concentration from a particularly horrible gash on his knee had that leg plunge into the water below.

Naruto had never been more grateful for living so far away salt water than at that moment. The bone numbing cold shooting into his wound actually felt nice compared to if it had been the ocean they battled on.

He was only saved from disappearing into the inky darkness below thanks to Samui and seconds later by Gamabunta emerging from the water with an enraged Jiraiya who had finally entered sage mode. He had his faithful elder toads guiding the power of senjutsu surging through his veins on each shoulder and creating the eyes of the toad, harmless looking but a sign of doom to those who knew better.

It was clear Hanzo did so. The ninja had stopped his attack and instead stared at his old rival with interest. The re-breather mask had taken some damage explaining the lack of poisonous smoke from the new salamander but otherwise the old man looked like he had just taken a leisurely stroll.

It was just not fair. Nothing on this earth could be that powerful! Hanzo could not teleport like his master so just where did this strength come from? Naruto moved to stand up to continue the fight, following his mantra of discovering the reasons why but was pushed down by the power of Samui and her grip on his shoulder.

"You are beyond helping us now shinobi," Samui commanded sternly, "You might have performed a miracle lasting this long but you are beyond help if you continue to strain your body past its limits." Samui offered a soft smile and patted his head. "I do not want my saviour dying on me just after I kept him from drowning." The girl summoned some lightning chakra and begun extracting the fragments embedded in his body. "Do you have any more of that antidote?"

Naruto shook his head futilely. "I had to use all of it keeping both of us alive. I will have to make do with hoping what I already injected will deal with the problem. Jiraiya," Naruto called out to the ninja staring his rival down. "Do not engage him alone."

"I'm sorry kid," Jiraiya said, "I forgot you don't understand what this power brings to a battle," he added making more of that nature chakra flare, "But don't worry. I will not let you die." The sage tried to cover up the mature statement by winking at the red head being held in the bosom of the buxom Kumo kunoichi until the up till now silent toads on his shoulders scolded him. His eyes suddenly shot to the immediate right among a clump of fallen trees that provided some darkness for a ninja to hide in.

Naruto could feel his eyes begin to close. It seemed his antidote wasn't enough. Damn he was going to miss the end of this glorious battle. Hell this might be the last time the Uzushiogakure no Sato native was ever awake again. He found his life flashing before his eyes. He was inundated with all his memories of Uzushiogakure no Sato, staring out into its big old depths of crystal clear water. Then he was reminded of Guren-sensei then to his life in Konoha, growing up with Minato and his family. Then it was the third shinobi war, tragedies of said war, losing friends and family, seeing horrific sights from battles until finally to the greatest horror of all. The day of the death of his sensei sacrificing himself for the safety of the village when Naruto was supposed to be the one who sacrificed himself and then the chillier life that followed after it until one image kept repeating itself in his head.

It was the biggest single regret of his life that he had the power to fix.

"Rin," Naruto murmured, deciding if anything it was a suitable last word to utter to a complete stranger cradling him as his system started to fail.

Then an event of apocalyptic proportions commenced, some like Naruto would think upon later as a miracle. Something, Naruto's fading conscious could not give this force a suitable title tore through the ravaged land. His eyes could not see but his senses, the power of the chakras that flowed from it, tearing trees to pieces as if they had never existed, parting the seas in a manner that made his own attempt almost powerless and for the first time ever made that bastard Hanzo showed an emotion.

It was of no comfort for what Naruto saw in his eyes was fear. A new player had just entered the battlefield. His failing eyes were unable to see very far, the dulling embers of colour started shimmering into greys. All Naruto could see was a blurry outline by using the direction Jiraiya and the Kumo woman were looking towards.

His own gaze could only pick out one thing about the new player in the field. They were awe inspiring, bowel loosening orbs of terror that belonged in the myths that spawned their legend.

It would forever haunt him for the rest of the days when Naruto took his first glimpse of the rinnegan.

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A/N There is chapter six and lucky you guys for the bumper sized chapter! Um review please as I am not really feeling the love here people and constructive reviews please and flames… Try not to but it's a free country well mine is anyway lol

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